Please Exit Hell Quietly By the Rear Doors
by InnocentCulprit61
Summary: Dean's shell-shocked like you wouldn't believe, Bobby's worrying himself into a peptic ulcer and Sam ... well, Sam's feeling a little dark.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Dean didn't think he'd ever called out for Sam in such a wussy way before, not here on earth anyhow.

_That's not me. It's not._

_Fuck, it is. That's me!_

He managed to fix that he was alone, lying stiff and diagonal on a motel bed, his left arm was stretching out towards the night-stand, and the Glock - damnandfuckitallto_crap_ - wasn't quite within reach.

Dean just wanted to die.

But then he changed his mind.

Yeah, so dying ... not really an option - he'd already done that. Except for the fact that he didn't know what made sense in any damn dimension, he was pretty sure that if he blew his brains out all over this sweaty motel pillow, apart from majorly pissing off Sam and the janitor, he'd only catapult himself back downstairs.

Dean actually suspected that when everything was done, pass or fail, he'd be thrown over the precipice anyway. Yeah, that'd work. He'd tumble to the dark-red sky below and there would be no reason to save him ever again.

_Blunt Instrument Needed for Celestial Duties_ _..._ remind me again who got that gig?

Correct! The screw-up with the demon brother!

_Are you dicks even serious? _

He lay on the bed looking at his arm, becoming aware that something, somewhere was flickering.

Remembering the inarticulate pleas he'd heard himself utter, Dean felt an unexpected wash of relief that Sam was absent. Withdrawing the arm and using it to lever himself up, he flumped off the bed and barged his way into the bathroom to throw water on his face. When he worried at the light switch there was a crack! which made him jump, a buzz of electricity through his fingertips, and then the flickering was replaced by semi-darkness.

Electricity and water. You'd think he'd have that covered.

A heady, red hangover hammered just out of sight behind his eyeballs. Dean could taste ashes in the stale-liquor skank on his tongue and his ear-drums were tender from the screaming. He placed a palm over one, leant his head into it. Nausea wound like an eel around his belly, crept stealthily up his throat.

_Come on, Dean, keep control ... it's all in the mind, son, you just keep control._

He so used to hate it when Dad did the mind-over-matter number on him, and he hated it even more that the years had made him such a fucking expert.

When the room door squeaked open he'd gotten a steady grip on both sides of the basin, head bent, eyes squeezed tight shut.

_Make it. All. Go away._

"Dean?" asked a cautious voice.

The relief Dean felt was painful. Painful because he knew he wouldn't be able to run with it. His inner voice babbled.

_I don't care what you've been doing, Sammy ... ganking demons with your mind, humping in the back of an alley ... whatever ... just .... in real trouble here, man. _

"Here," is all he actually got out.

He was aware that Sam - tall but solid, radiating anxiety like a convective heater - was suddenly at his shoulder, not hovering, just staring with that new, detached scrutiny of his.

"What's the problem?" he asked.

Dean forced open his lids and coughed nervously. "You ... you're back early."

He saw Sam's eyes dart to the death-grip that he still had on the basin and thought wildly that Sammy's face looked kind of beautiful whenever that light-bulb thing flashed on inside his head. Beautiful, like when he was a little kid, but downright scary, too, scary in a this-shouldn't-be way that was really beginning to get on Dean's nerves.

"I thought you were asleep," Sam said slowly and clearly, as if dealing with a half-wit.

Dean felt a dizzying rush of paranoia. He was well aware that Sam didn't always talk to him as if he was on the same intellectual plain, but since two weeks ago in Kentucky, he seemed reluctant to talk to him at all. He'd become so hands-off that he was practically in another country.

"Let me see," Dean said, hoping that being ornery might help with the mind over matter thing, "Oh yeah, I was a-asleep. Dreaming that my little brother f-fucked a demon."

When he realized what trouble he'd had getting out some of the words, Dean screwed up his face in total disgust. Not much point having a smart mouth unless you can bring it off inch perfect.

"Listen ..." began Sam.

Dean unscrewed his face, unlocked his grip, shook his head slightly to try and dislodge the last twitches of memory. He still desperately wanted Sam to hold him steady somehow, stop him falling on the ground and mewling, but that wasn't going to happen unless he asked, and he wasn't going to ask this side of Armageddon. Perhaps not even on the other side.

"I'm good."

"The hell, Dean."

"The hell!" Dean repeated, launching himself off the basin and managing to walk past Sam without his legs giving way. "Did you actually just say that? The hell ...." A slightly hysterical laugh bubbled up. "The horror ...." No, he couldn't stop it, the stupid laugh squawked out and the silence that followed was huge.

_And this ... this is exactly how you act when you're terrified._

"Heart of Darkness," Sam said, as if everything - all of it - made perfect sense to him.

He sounded so damn wordly that Dean practically winced.

"Heart of who-dy?"

A quirk of amusement caught the corner of Sam's mouth. It traveled, lightning-fast, right up to his eyes and Dean basked for just a short moment in what seemed long-lost.

"Joseph Conrad."

"Right, right." Dean wasn't really sure. He'd actually thought it was Marlon Brando and he'd never even heard of the other guy.

"Aren't you going to ask me where I've been?" Sam questioned hopefully.

Dean shook his head again, steadfast.

"OK, let me tell you where I've been."

Dean waved him away.

_Nope. You don't know how to explain. You're done with it anyway, you said so._

"I couldn't sleep, you jerk. I couldn't sleep and I went out for some air."

Air. Sweet, fresh, earthly air. Dean hoped Sammy had filled his lungs with it. He wished he could explain how precious it was. He wished he believed him.

"I got you this." Sam held up his hands. He was balancing one grande on top of another. Perhaps that was why he didn't reach out and prize Dean off the basin.

Dean sat on the bed and took the top cup. The liquid was way too hot to drink but he poured some down his throat anyway.

_Well, you see, Sammy, when I was in Hell I also learnt a lot of really great stuff. _

It pooled in his stomach, but there was a flare of caffeine across his frontal lobes that felt more than good. He wished that his hands were not shaking so bad. Sam came to sit on the other bed and now they were knee to knee.

"You're not doing so good," Sam said with conviction. He seemed cool, watchful, and he put his own cup on the floor between his feet.

Dean longed for the acceptability of the retreat he'd made as a four year-old. Safety in silence. It had been involuntary, of course, and he hadn't appreciated the protection it gave him at the time. Now his default was this mind over matter shit, because he believed (he really believed, right down to the toes of his boots) that talking wouldn't help. The reinforced safety-doors that Alastair had blown right off in Kentucky, leaving Dean nearly blubbing his guts out, had been slammed shut again before it got too bad. Dean's first gambit to keep it that way was to increase the booze, and so far it was doing a job, but what the .... Sam was trying to take the coffee from him and he didn't know why.

"Dean, give it me, you're going to burn yourself."

"Mumokay," Dean protested, but hot coffee jumped out of the goddamn cup on to his wrist. He felt it scald his skin but he didn't react.

"Dean!"

That's when it dropped. He didn't drop it - why would he when he wanted to inhale the rest of the damn stuff so bad - it just kind of dropped itself, sliding out of his grip and splatting on to the floor between them. Sam leapt up but Dean stayed where he was.

He looked at his little brother's giant frame lolloping around the room, getting a cloth, patting the carpet with it, then throwing it straight through the open bathroom door.

"Uh, so the DT's?" Sam said pointedly, and he seemed to be holding on to something with difficulty. His temper, perhaps. His patience for sure. "That's ... you having some half-assed flashback ... or whatever?"

Now that his brother was actually here, sounding wretched and fearful, Dean decided to take more care than ever not to offload. There was too much going on with Sam already, what with the demon-blood fuckery and all. Dean hated that fuckery. It was the kind of fuckery invented just to screw with them, even more than decisions made by Winchesters past and present had screwed with them already.

So yeah. Geekboy might have to cope with some wake-up-screaming nightmares and scraping-the-barrel bad behavior of the shit-faced variety, but not detailed knowledge of the egregious agonies that Perdition had handed out. Not even second-hand.

_No way. You're not getting anymore of the turning inside-out for forty fucking years crap. Forget it, Sammy, don't come near me with that. _

He selected a huge, ton-weight lie instead, and handed it to Sam like it was a gift.

"Nothing heavy," he said, and fuck if he didn't almost believe it himself.

"Don't tell me, howler monkeys wearing little skirts?"

Dean was so grateful to him for picking up the tattered thread of a bad taste joke that he could have cried.

He huffed a laugh that hurt his head. "Mangy hell-hound messing on the carpet."

"But nothing from after?"

_Jesus, Sammy, always with the pokey stick questions._

"Nothing after the crunchy bones, nah."

Sam nodded and nodded, an action that his brother knew meant he was pretending to agree but didn't really. "Hungry? You gonna take a shower? Change your clothes?"

Dean groaned. Really. Too many options. He weighed up his thumping head, the damp coffee blotches, his seasick guts.

"Let's go eat," he said in the end. "South Dakota's gotta be what .. twenty hours away? I can live with myself until then."

Sam wrinkled his nose, then shrugged. He reached down for his coffee and Dean queasily watched him gulp it down. His own rebellious stomach was already anticipating that breakfast today would be like breakfast yesterday, and breakfast everyday since he got back. It would taste burnt when it wasn't. Even the orange juice that Sam would almost certainly insist on ordering would taste burnt.

Still, breakfast was a good, important normal-life thing to do. They were good at breakfast, could track one another's state of mind and body by what was ordered and how it went down. And they didn't have to chat over breakfast, he knew that. Best of all, it might stave off that moment when his thoughts drifted, as he knew they would, to the half-bottle of Jack Daniels, which he hadn't even been enjoying that much, but which he had wedged between the mattress and the wall when Sam's back was turned. Dean was all about hiding-places.

"You coming?" Sam asked, brisk.

Dean wound himself up to make standing again. Rising from the bed, a wave of terror - his and what felt like everyone else's - broke silently over his shoulders, trickled down his limbs and away. It left the hair on the back of his neck standing up in icy little stalagmites.

One nanosecond more of screaming from the other side slapped him smartly upside the head, and then it was gone.

Dean reached a little blindly for his jacket, squared his shoulders and led them from the room.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

It was actually true that Sam had been getting some air. He had been doing his all-alone, walking in the dawn thing, having sat bolt upright, eyeballs peeled, at around half-past four.

"What?" he'd said into the silence, ready.

A spike of adrenaline cleared his head more efficiently than a cold-water shower, but there had been nothing, apparently, to be ready for.

No external disturbance.

The bathroom light had been flickering, but it was just regular, faulty electrics. Sam had noticed the switch-up-or-switch-down flicker as soon as they'd checked in yesterday evening. Dean had to have it pointed out to him, and even then told Sam to go fill out a form or quit bitching.

Then, as now, Sam's inner perfectionist had been irritated by the discrepancy, but he'd figured that tinkering with wires this early in the day was a little too anal, even for him. Face sluiced, teeth brushed, he'd just pulled the door up a bit when he came out so it didn't bother Dean, although there really didn't seem much chance of that.

"You awake?" Sam had said, because he could never be entirely sure.

But his brother had remained almost disturbingly quiet and still, half in and half out of the bedding as if undecided. One hand held a sheet up against his chest, the other was laying on the bedspread, clawed slightly against the cheap satin.

Sleep had been crowded out of Sam's mind by a sudden sharp rise in his ever-present anxiety and the sight only compounded it. Now he was awake, he couldn't stay in the room, despite the knowledge that at some stage Dean was going to rocket towards the surface.

Silently, perhaps, a rapid upward motion from the pillow eliciting not so much as a slight intake of breath. Or harshly, a slash of metal through the belly making Dean gasp as he sat up. It might be even worse than that, but whatever it was like, Sam wouldn't be allowed to help. Better to get out of the combat zone, avoid the whole fucking thing altogether and hope to God it didn't turn out to be the one time he really, _really_ needed to be there.

"I'll be back," he'd said to the room, just in case by some chance Dean was now teetering in some half-awake state.

No reaction. Of course no reaction. Dean was doing what any idiot should be doing at a quarter before five in the frigging morning. He was fast asleep.

Sam had left the room and struck out across the dark parking lot, hands jammed in his pockets.

*****

He walked until he was breathless, striking out for the patchy forest they'd driven through on the way in. The impulse to leave it all behind was as strong as ever.

Dawn was generally Sam's favorite time of day, bringing light as it did, some measure of hope that since the sun had somehow managed to come up again maybe he could start over. In the past, walking alone by dawn's early light usually meant he had an exam. Now it meant his mind was over-firing following an exorcism, or else that Dean was doing his best to seriously mess with his head by dying on him or something.

Solitude suited him a lot more than it suited his brother, but in all honesty, today he would have preferred company. Ruby, even, although what they had to talk about right now he wasn't exactly sure, and of course dawn was about her _least_ favorite time of day. It was no damn good pretending that a part of him didn't miss her faintly inhuman eyes watching his every move, the encouragement that was starting to verge on adulation.

"That scheming, skanky hell-bitch ..."

In her recent absence Dean had reverted to his traditional opinion.

But he'd kind of missed the point, Sam thought, being dead and out of commission and all. He didn't really understand, even now, about the no-way-out that Sam had been tearing up and down, getting more and more insane as the days ticked relentlessly by. About the bare, screaming hopelessness of being left behind. About the strength of mind and body that Ruby had handed back to him, a strength he thought had been chewed away along with Dean's ribs.

Sam stopped mindlessly tramping when he felt the change of air coming, and sat on a tree-stump to watch the sunrise through winter-bare branches.

It did what things like sunrise always did to him - applied a little balm to his soul - but balm or no balm, the stew of emotions that had come with him were as prickly under his skin as ever. Resentment and worry and guilt. Guilt and worry and resentment. Magnified a thousandfold, seasoned with wrath.

_Yeah, wrath_.

He liked that word. It summed it all up. It was more anger and rage than a body had a hope of overcoming.

But, really ... within him lurked a wrathful, half-formed offshoot of Azazel, and _that _was all Dean had to rely on now?

_Hi, my name's Sam and my brother is an alcoholic. He has every reason to be one, and I really shouldn't blame him._

New sunlight flared in his eyes.

_He should blame me. But he doesn't. He really doesn't._

The whole thing had curdled in his gut when he'd got back to find Dean clamped to the basin in the motel bathroom.

In bad shape, too, looked like. Verging on the worst since Kentucky. It actually beggared belief that he'd found a way to keep going at all as far as Sam was concerned, but somehow, Dean had found his feet, his deep and constant snark, within hours of nearly imploding in front of Sam's eyes. Now, to the untrained observer, it was only the intermittent shakes that hinted of the despair eating through to his bones.

Sam's out-of-control anxiety had been nearly hijacked by a stab of anger at the deeply disbelieving look he got when he'd explained his whereabouts.

Dean was all pursed lips, and for a second Sam had seriously wanted to punch his lights out. The anger faded as he watched his brother jerking hot coffee over himself, submitting to the burn without a glimmer of emotion.

*****

In the diner Dean held the menu with one hand and pulled at his ear with the other like a tired child.

"Freshly squeezed," Sam said when the juice came and they both tasted it, but he noticed the way Dean rolled his tongue around his mouth and teeth as if there was something nasty in there.

"It's ... fruit," Dean said, and Sam belatedly remembered that he'd never been much of juice boy, especially juice with bits of fiber floating around in it. "Dude, that's just nasty."

"No, Dean, it's ..."

Jesus. Why did Dean sucker him into giving these prissy lectures about vitamins? It was a bit late for healthy living.

"It's ...?"

"Good for you," Sam mumbled into his glass.

"Makes me want to yack."

"Just drink it."

Dean twisted in his seat, searching for a coffee refill. "We got a day/night drive ahead, right?"

Sam felt a bit gloomy about that. "Yeah, Bobby's waiting on us."

"He say anymore?"

"No, just that he wants us to get there."

"And you didn't ask why?"

"Of course I asked why," Sam told him, "but to be honest, man, I don't think he's pimping us a job. I mean, there's been activity here and there, but it's not off the scale."

"Good," Dean said, "We've had too much offthescale lately. Fuck offthescale."

"Yeah and I'm driving," Sam told him, not quite as pushy as he wanted to be.

"No," Dean came back, way more pushy, "No you're not."

Sam fell into his habit of finding small ways to please, because the big ways were too big and too hard.

"OK, you take it to the first stop, then I'm taking over. And eat something. Eat a lot of something, Dean, because I swear your blood-alcohol is ... offthefreakinscale."

Dean did a little double-take on him. "You really got used to throwing your weight about while I was gone, didn't you?"

"Who would I do that with?" Sam asked, and he knew his voice was a tad sharp. He hated that phrase. _While I was gone_. Dean would dredge it up when he wanted to push buttons.

"With whom," Dean said.

"With ...? What?"

"With _whom_ would you do that."

"God, Dean .... don't you give me a ... you don't know shit about grammar, asshat. We need to share the driving on this one, all right? We're both tired, we both need a rest, so we both need to drive."

Again the double-take. "OK, you cranky bitch, have it your way."

After the first stop they butted heads just because they could.

Sam paid for the gas, did a coffee run while Dean was skulking in the restroom. When he came heading back towards the driver's door with tunnel vision, Sam headed him off at the pass, used his extra height to block entry, and planted his feet firm, just in case Dean felt like having a scuffle.

"Come on, man. My turn. We agreed," he said. Dean stood swinging the keys from one finger, head angled slightly. Sam held out a palm.

"I feel fine to drive," Dean said.

"Really."

"Yes really."

"OK, just so you know, I would be pissed _off_ if, after all this, you killed us both in a car-wreck. Another car-wreck. In case you hadn't noticed, we're out of deals, Dean. All out of 'em. Let me drive the next two hundred."

"Can I .. can I p-point out that _you_ were driving when we had the last car-wreck?" Dean grumped, but he didn't seem to have the energy for a fight and handed over the keys. Sam could tell that he didn't know quite what to make of the fact that he wasn't going to get his own way. He was clearly just a teeny bit impressed, although seriously fucking annoyed. Obviously. Sam could tell that by the copious amount of butt-shuffling that went on once he got in the car.

As soon as he was behind the wheel -- which, honestly, he'd kind of missed -- Sam didn't say anymore.

Even so, it was nearly two hours before Dean's stubborn stare into the wing-mirror on his side turned heavy-lidded. Sam didn't glance over, not once, because he knew the slightest hint of over-concern would undermine his purpose completely. He just kept on driving, and didn't allow himself the luxury of turning his head until he was sure that Dean's head-slump against the glass was sleep rather than mere trance-like exhaustion.

"Take it from an expert, dude," he said out loud, testing the water, "you need this," and since Dean didn't usually sleep in the Impala any time it was moving, Sam knew he was right.

It wasn't quite the ideal, though. Sam had caught on to his brother's battle against sleep pretty quick - quicker than he'd caught on to the whiskey. Somniphobia was something he'd been able to relate to since he was about eight and the whole monster thing kicked in, so he'd always look to get both of them rested. Preferably tucked up in bed with nothing to worry about.

Like that had ever happened in their entire lives.

Sam was tired, too. Sure he was tired. Strangely, though, he found he didn't need to sleep nearly as much as he thought he should. He could get by on three or four hours and even that seemed a weakness somehow. Shit. If there was going to be any possible advantage to having demon blood cells coursing through his body, then maybe not needing sleep was it.

_Yeah, you can keep the visions and powers thing, just let me have more hours. _

Everything was very unclear in Sam's mind, everything from A to Z, and he'd always put a big premium on clarity. For God's sake, he'd leapt down his Dad's throat more times than he cared to remember in pursuit of the crystal clear. He might be driving the Impala towards the relative sanctuary that Bobby's place provided, and Dean might be alive and slumbering at his side. But since Pontiac, either they hadn't actually connected or, worse, had missed each other completely in some new, dark mist, leaving Sam sick with rage and Dean ... well if Dean was going to be some kind of celestially-sponsored hero leading the multitudes in this war that was always about to happen, then apparently he was going to have to cowboy up to do it.

Sam had to hand it to him, though. Dean made a more than competent drunk.

Dishonesty and subterfuge, which, let's face it, had been the watchwords of their existence for as long as Sam could remember, were like breathing in and out to his brother. His natural aptitude for sneaking about and covering his tracks were skills he had honed over a lifetime. They were coming in desperately handy now.

Most of all, though, he had the denial and bare-faced lying down pat.

"_Sammy, really ... you don't need to freak out, it's not a problem."_

"_I threw it away, Sam, really. I promise you."_

"_No, you're right, it sucks, I don't want to do it anymore."_

And always, always he'd look Sam in the eye. Sonofabitch. He'd do it without missing a beat and his voice would be rock steady, even if his hands weren't.

Sam figured it was probably his fault. But in any case he was sure these days that it was his fucking responsibility.

Regular glances now told him Dean was temporarily crashed, although he slept with his shoulders slightly hunched and his hands tense in his lap.

Sam pressed down on the gas and then a bit more, heart sinking as he heard his brother's hard head make loud contact with the window, twice.

Head-banging in his sleep, that couldn't be good.

Sam felt an inchoate rage choking off his airway, making his eyes fizz, his fingertips tingle with painful, untapped energy. He lifted both hands from the wheel and then slammed them back so the steering column vibrated.

It hurt. All that stuff inside him, the power to save and destroy. It hurt when he used it, but it sometimes it hurt even more when he didn't.

Dean coughed a little, dug the heels of his hands into his thighs.

The engine met Sam's stamping foot with a growl of welcome and the Impala bucked slightly as it accelerated. He looked at his eyes in the mirror.

_I'm coming for you, Lilith, you bitch. And you, Alastair. Fuck yes. And you._


	3. Chapter 3

Bobby had nothing much on his mind except centrifugal clutches.

The years had taught him well how to pack his waking thoughts with practical, hand-held issues when he got the chance, and he'd been doing it since he opened his eyes that morning to Rumsfeld's successor breathing hot fumes in his face.

_Coffee. Dog. Eggs. Coffee. Dismantled chain-saw. Need new boots. Worry about that later._

So entrenched was he in the minutiae of two-stroke engine parts, that the rumbling of an approaching car up the track took slightly longer than usual to register with him.

When the process of: vehicle ... approaching ... what the hell ... had run its course, he realized he knew who it was and couldn't believe how in tarnation they'd gotten here so damn quick. That souped-up rumble was as familiar to Bobby as a child's yell is to a parent, and as so often happened when he heard it, he wasn't immediately sure if he felt violently happy or violently worried.

He wandered out into the yard, the dog (who went by the name Dog) pattering after him, and stood poking at the innards of a rusted VW coupe while the Impala rounded the corner and drove a half circle before halting in front of him. Out of the open driver's window snaked a large paw which hailed him rather ruefully. The door creaked and the Impala disgorged Sam Winchester into the harsh morning sun. Dog grumbled in the back of his throat but his owner's fingers tucking under his collar made him subside.

"Hey, Bobby."

A standard greeting, but ground out in the voice of a man who's been folded into a car seat so long that air has almost ceased to circulate through his tubes.

"You been at the wheel all night?" Bobby asked, although it was a moot point because Sam looked about as wrecked as he'd sounded. Stooped from fatigue, eyes huge in his taut, white face. So, if Sam had been driving .... Bobby ducked his head to look in the car.

Shit. Now he could die in peace.

"Is that for real?"

Sam grimaced. "For real."

"Yeah, well suppose you close the window so he doesn't freeze to death, and come on inside." He snapped his fingers at Dog's ear to indicate that he was to stand down now. A pat to his side told him he was right to be vigilant but he had to keep his teeth under wraps.

"Good to see you, Bobby."

"Likewise," Bobby said. He gave another glance backwards at the occupant of the passenger seat - head lolled back, lashes barely skimming the pasty cheeks, jaw locked tight - and then waved Sam inside.

While Bobby put on more coffee, because he figured that eight in the morning was a little too early for anything else, Sam walked around the house stretching out the kinks. In the manner of a nephew come to see a grizzled uncle with fun things on his shelves he poked about, picked stuff up, turned it over, flipped through some books lying on a table.

"You look like you're busy with something," Sam observed when Bobby came through to plump a big chipped mug full of steaming black liquid in his hand.

"I don't do frothy," Bobby said when he saw Sam do the smallest of frowns as he took hold of it.

"No this is great," Sam assured him and took several gulps just to demonstrate his good will. "Whoah, Bobby, you could stand a spoon up in this .... "

"Huh," Bobby said, "Your brother'll appreciate it when he comes round."

He watched Sam continue his perambulation round the room, not quite sure what he was looking at, if the boy was strung out by nerves and exhaustion, or if he just seemed .... off. These days he was never quite sure what he was looking at with the younger Winchester, or if he wanted to look at him too long at all. Eventually Sam seemed to get the idea that he was being observed. He cocked a stare at Bobby - challenging but controlled, so very John that Bobby felt a twinge in his belly - and then came to settle down.

They were sitting in the kitchen at either side of the table looking through Bobby's latest stuff when the door to outside was pushed open and Dean appeared. He leaned for a second or two on the frame and then pushed himself over the threshold. In a shuffling walk towards them he cleared his throat, pawed at his stubbly jaw and rubbed the back of his head. Bobby noticed that Sam barely glanced up at him although he was clearly aware of every move he was making.

"Dean," Bobby said.

"Bob," Dean responded in a chesty voice, apparently unable to form more of a greeting than that.

"You want coffee." More of a statement than a question.

Dean went on rubbing the back of his head. "Coffee," he said thoughtfully. "Yeah. Coffee."

Bobby got to his feet and snagged another big mug from the drainer. He filled it to the brim and handed it over. Dean took it with both hands, met Bobby's gimlet stare very briefly and then hunched over the mug, standing with his back to the kitchen sink.

"I don't get it, Bobby," Sam said, "what do you need us for?"

Bobby let go everything to do with the centrifugal clutch regretfully. "You working a job?" he asked.

Sam might have looked a little guilty. "No, we ... no, not right now."

"And everything's OK?"

"Well you know ... it's uh ..." Sam searched for inspiration, knowing he just didn't have the words, even him, the guy with all the words. "It's what it is, Bobby."

"Thought maybe you'd like some time to re-group," Bobby said. "Get your shit together."

"That's ... good of you," Sam said lamely.

"We don't need looking after," Dean said, and his voice was gravel with extra rocks. He sounded twenty kinds of pissed off.

"I'm not offering," Bobby replied. "But you boys have had a rough couple of weeks and it shows."

"Right," said Dean sourly, "first time in m-months there are no fucking angels hassling me every time I turn around, no demons fighting each other to get into Sam's panties .. so yeah, we really ought to relax and kick back for a while .. put the apocalypse on hold and drink mojitos by the pool - that what you're saying?"

Bobby had known both the Winchester boys for way too long to let either Sam's evasiveness or Dean's belligerence bother him one iota.

"Yeah," he said, "that's more or less what I'm saying."

An inarticulate gurn emanated from Dean as he took several large swallows of coffee, turned and dumped the mug into the sink with a clatter. Sam looked at the floor. Bobby wasn't sure if he'd registered the stutter or not.

"I have stuff to do," Bobby said. "I won't be around much and I sure as hell don't intend to change your diapers. But you boys know how to make yourself at home." He shrugged as if he didn't care one way or the other. "So make yourself at home. Beer in the fridge, sheets on the beds and I can always find you work to do."

Dean and Sam did not look at one another, which Bobby found weird as all get-out.

"Well I got no cause to persuade you if you ain't willing," he went on. "Stay or go, that's up to you. But I think you should at least get a few hours' rest and take a shower." He nodded. "Yeah. That's what I think." He pulled at a few hairs of his beard with a thumb and forefinger. "'Sides, there's weather comin' in. You might have no choice."

Dean took to scratching the back of his head again. He seemed to make up his mind, without even looking to Sam for his opinion.

"Clean towels in the ...?"

"Always," Bobby replied.

They'd been through such pared-down exchanges countless times before, and Bobby cherished every one.

Dean began to shrug out of his jacket as he headed from the room.

"You're taking first shower?" Sam demanded pissily at his back.

"Age before weirdness, Sammy, you know that."

Bobby could see that Sam was about ten million miles from amused, moodily thumbing through the pile of papers when Dean went out. Without taking his eyes from the table he drummed his fingers and then suddenly said,

"You're twitchy, Bobby."

"_I'm_ twitchy?"

Bobby rubbed one thumb nail over his bottom lip.

"Something you're not telling us?"

"Just worried," Bobby said and then poked a little nervously at the point between his ribs where he could feel the reflux burn a warning.

"Whatchaworriedabout?"

Bobby glanced at the door. Playing surrogate parent was a role he tried to keep at arm's length for a whole slew of reasons, but John would have expected him to try something at this point. An impassioned lecture and a kick up the butt at the very least.

"However quiet it's gone, Sam," Bobby said in what he hoped was a reasonable voice, "we both know ... well, we both know it ain't gonna stay that way. I brought you boys here to have a look at you and I'm not real impressed with what I can see." Bobby nearly ran out of gas at that point, not at all sure that such a John-ism would have a positive impact on Sam. "Are you sure you're up for the next showdown? Your brother's up for it?"

Sam looked up from the table. "Of all people, Bobby, who wouldn't be more up for a showdown than Dean?"

Which might have been true, about forty years ago.

"I'm not so sure, Sam. He doesn't seem .... himself." Bobby had chosen his words carefully but they still sounded woeful when they came out and he wanted to kick himself.

_Way to go, Singer. Tell it like it isn't._

"He's tired," Sam said and Bobby wondered fleetingly which of them he was trying to protect.

"You mean tired as in liquored-up?" Bobby asked, finally going for the blunt, already knowing the answer. The swell of his heart when Dean had stood in here three months ago, intact, human, recovered, had been shrinking steadily with every late-night call from Sam, hinting at the memories searing back into his brother's head like so many drops of acid. Bobby didn't know the details, either of that or of Sam's four months alone. He didn't want to know, didn't think he could handle it. He only had to look at the two of them.

"Yeah," Sam said, shoulders sagging as he committed the betrayal. "Dean's always had his moments."

"Shoot," Bobby said, lip curling. "You've both always had your moments. It's just that now isn't a real good time to be having one of your moments. Either of you."

"I'm fine."

"Any time a Winchester tells me he's fine usually comes before some very bad shit. So, all right then. Your brother's traumatized out of his skull and self-treating with whiskey ... what's your damn excuse?"

Sam looked like he really hadn't wanted to hear the summation. "That's enough isn't it?" he said, a mite sulky as far as Bobby was concerned. "He's keeping me busy. And I fucking drove all night, Bobby, give me a break!"

Bobby was getting that violent anxiety vibe again.

_Fucking Winchesters._

"I'm going out," he announced.

Sam looked surprised, perturbed even.

"Where you going, Bob?"

Bobby waggled his big toes experimentally. "I guess to get me some new boots," he said.

*****************

Later in the morning it snowed.

Dean watched it from where he sat at Bobby's big desk with the roll-down top that never got rolled down. The snow got heavy quickly, heavy and fast, and Dean had to look away after a while because it was beginning to make him feel dizzy.

Dog had pawed at the door when the first flakes began to tumble from the sky and Dean stared at him on the other side of the glass for a long while before he clenched his teeth and let him in.

After a mad shake to offload some of the damp acquired when he'd rolled in the white stuff, Dog searched out the hand Dean was keeping behind his back. His nose bumped skin as he sniffed and Dean's flesh crawled to feel the contact. He stood stock still where he was, half expecting his whole hand to be bitten off, until Dog left his side and went to sit expectantly by the empty fireplace.

"Forget it," Dean said, "Just plain ... forget it." He scrubbed his hand down one thigh.

Sam had checked out after breakfast - which Dean had cooked, and considered one of the more awesome feasts that he'd ever produced. The younger Winchester was now sleeping neatly in the second of the two spare beds Bobby owned, the comfortable one. He was lying in an almost perfect recovery position, both hands tugging the squashy pillow closer against his head.

Cute.

Dean peered in at him, waiting for that good feeling he always got when he saw Sammy safe, at rest. His stomach lurched, like he was in a plunging elevator, which wasn't quite the effect he was looking for.

_How long have we got, Sam? When are you going to go scary-ass on me again? How long do you think we've got?_

Heartbeat throbbing in his ears, mouth dry, Dean left Sam in peace. He cleared up the splatters of pancake batter quietly, leaving Bobby's kitchen area several shades brighter than it had been before he started. He went out into the raw air, moved his baby under cover, let the engine tick over for a minute or two, just because he liked the sound, and chopped wood quietly. Quietly he looked at the clock every so often to see if was still unacceptably early to make a move on Bobby's bourbon. Finally, unable to find anything else physical to do, he cleared a space on the desk and quietly fired up the laptop.

Just after midday Dog lifted his head from his paws and rumbled loudly, the sound setting Dean's heart off into an arrhythmic skitter that sucked the feeling right out of his hands.

Someone had come by looking for Bobby, someone with a _bona fide_ scrap metal question. It was a guy in a gray beanie with weird eyes. Normally weird eyes. Not weird-colored weird eyes, or laser-weird eyes. Just weird-weird eyes. He gave Dean his name and went on his way but by the time Dean had crunched back inside and found some note-paper he'd totally forgotten what the guy had said.

_Damn_. Brain malfunction could almost certainly be caused by too much pickling in 43% proof sour mash whiskey, but Dean also knew that irritation was definitely cured by the same thing. It was another one of those hair-of-the-dog-facts, and dogs just had to be good for something. He sucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, made smacking sounds.

Millertime. Had to be.

Just as he found himself approaching the cupboard where he knew Bobby kept his booze, the man himself made a sudden appearance in his pick-up and Dean veered off-course straight away. He was sitting back at the laptop looking like he was actually doing something that involved words when two brown grocery bags preceded Bobby in the door.

"Message," Dean said, nodding to the square of paper he'd left in a really bad place by the sink where it was already rendered nearly illegible by watermarks.

"What the hell does this mean?" Bobby asked.

"Someone came looking for you," Dean explained.

Bobby squinted down at the soggy piece of paper. "Gray beanie guy. Weird eyes," he read out loud.

"Yeah, I forget his name."

"Well I hope to hell it wasn't important," Bobby said. "What else he say?"

"Nothin much. Wanted to talk to you about the ... uh ... he was interested in ... damnit, Bobby, he must be a regular. You know him ... guy with the weird eyes." Dean's forefingers swirled impatient worm-holes.

"Jesus wept," Bobby growled. "Where's your sidekick?"

"Still asleep."

Bobby dumped the two bags down on a worktop.

"Thanks for the wood," he said, eyeing the heap of logs. "Didn't feel like making up the fire?"

Dean looked at him, looked at the wood. "You want me to make up a fire?" His voice sounded all dry, leeched-out with what Bobby could only identify as fear. It didn't make sense, to identify fear with Dean Winchester, but that was what he heard.

Bobby was guessing, floundering. It didn't seem like a big deal, but he knew there hadn't been a salt and burn since ....

"Do you want something to do?"

Dean made a face like he was weighing up the best option. "That depends," he said.

"D'you want something to do?" Bobby repeated ominously.

"Oh .. kay, I'm guessing the answer is yes."

"See that?" Bobby motioned with his chin across the kitchen and Dean followed the direction and lit upon a pile of metal on some newspaper under a bookcase.

"Uh-huh."

"Needs fixin."

"Did I mention," said Dean, "how friggin delighted I am to be here?"

"You mighta said something."

Bobby carried on unpacking his bags, listening as Dean gathered up and dumped saw parts on a long, paint-splashed workbench near the desk. Much sighing and clanking of metal, screws rolling across the floor, just the one curse, a doozy that made Bobby bite back a smile. He didn't feel so much like smiling when he watched, though.

Holy crap. Since when had it been such a smart idea to put a chain- saw in the hands of Shaky McBunglefingers?

"You want to be careful there," he said mildly. "Those teeth are sharp."

"Do you want me to do this?" Dean growled, flexing his hands.

"Yes I want you to do it."

"Then shut the ... shut up."

Bobby was strangely gratified that what Dean might have said to Sam, or even to John on a bad day, he wouldn't say to him.

"You want caffeine?" he asked.

Dean grunted.

He and Bobby understood each other. They always had.

By the time Sam woke up and came yawning and stretching in from the downstairs bedroom, some order had been established and there was a quiet air of industry about the place. A log-fire was burning, Bobby was the one with the books and the laptop, and Dean was perched on a stool with a really lethal-looking piece of blade balanced across his knees and haphazardly-sorted piles of screws like little mountain-ranges on a piece of oilcloth in front of him.

"Jesus," Sam said, drawing near. "Whose idea was that?"

"Some of us are being helpful," Dean said without looking up. His voice was tight enough that they knew it was a battle to stay focused.

Sam cocked a glance over at Bobby who raised an eyebrow in silent question. Sam replied equally silently.

"How you feeling?" Bobby asked.

"That bed is awesome, Bobby." Sam let loose a grin that made him, at last, look completely familiar, and Bobby nodded.

"Yeah, you used to fight each other for it."

"And I always won," Dean said, still concentrating. "But you and Dad let Sam have the bed anyway because he was such a girl. Nothin changes."

"Snow," Sam said in interest as he looked out the window. There wasn't much of Excited Sammy in the voice, but it was at least interested, because snow .... different to no snow. Both he and Bobby waited half a beat for some crack about college education but there was silence from the workbench.

Dean got up and paced the house every time he dropped something, or nicked himself again. Once, he looked up fiercely at Bobby, asking to be released.

"Good job," Bobby said, no trace of irony. He knew, even if he ended up cutting half his fingers off, Dean would finish the job, as long as he thought Bobby wanted him to. "I couldn't do a damn thing with it."

"You suck," Dean said ungraciously. "I still want a shot of your bourbon."

"I know you do, boy, but like I said before, I'm not here to wipe your nose. You want it, you help yourself."

"Well I will then."

"Well alright then."

"'kay," said Dean, but he didn't move from where he was.

"What about you?" Bobby demanded towards Sam, who had pottered off to find the coffee jug.

"What about me?"

"You want a job to do?"

Sam backed out of the kitchen looking a bit worried. "A job like that?"

"Ha!" Dean said.

"Well I thought something more suited to your abilities. We got cold weather mortality spikes all over the country. Did you know that?"

"You want me to find us a case?"

Bobby looked at the back of Dean's head and raised his brows. "I want you to keep your eye on things, Sam," he said.

"I do," Sam said, "I mean, I will."

"Good," Bobby said. "I'll see you later, I got to go see a guy with weird eyes."

"Huh?"

"Ask him," Bobby said, giving the back of Dean's shoulder the lightest of pats as he passed.

Godammnit. It was as near normal as he could give them, and he knew it wasn't going to hold.

The snow went on falling until it got dark.


	4. Chapter 4

Sam wasn't sure, but he calculated that Dean sank no more than a couple of beers the first few days they were at the Yard, though judging by his very occasional wryly-upturned lips when he thought no-one was looking at him, there was probably a buttload of secret chugs going on behind the scenes.

They danced around one another, never going beyond a rapid tangle of gazes.

_I know, you know._

_I know you know, you know._

The snow kept them pretty much corralled, while exhaustion and a precious kind of relief, made them sleep. The second night Dean even got undressed in a normal, going-to-bed kind of way, although he awoke some hours later with a wild shout and a flurry, seemingly unaware of his whereabouts, the look in his eyes unreadable.

"He's doing OK," Bobby said, for Sam's benefit.

A remark almost in passing, not suggesting they discuss.

"Yeah, that's because he's real good at it," Sam said.

Dean was outside swinging the axe like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre had come to town.

"Have you talked?" Bobby asked, flapping a hand at the window.

"Oh sure, mostly when he's unconscious."

"And when he's not?"

"What do you think, Bobby?"

"Ain't you two supposed to be saving the world?" Bobby said. "Boy are we in trouble."

A couple of beers and whatever else was going on plainly didn't quite cut it. The only way, in the end, to avoid Dean walking out on his own into the snow to find a bar, was for Bobby and Sam to go with him, even though they had agreed between themselves, on the first day, that they were going to try and distract him.

"What is this, the fucking Betty Ford Clinic?" Dean had growled after less than a day and a half of their distraction techniques. He'd mended the saw, cleaned, oiled or sharpened every weapon in the Impala's trunk, chopped wood all fucking day long and even done most of the cooking while his brother and host jawed on over books and maps as if the world wasn't about to end while he, Dean Winchester, ass-farted around doing odd jobs.

"OK," Bobby said, highly unexpectedly, "We'll go out for a beer and I know just where."

"Is it safe?" Sam asked. He was already feeling the need to cling to the quiet life. Even though he knew it was ridiculous, the Yard, Bobby's house, the whole damn place felt like one big, iron-clad panic room and Sam wanted to stay in it.

"There might be a hunter or two," Bobby said. "But it's a rare and friendly place. And I'm driving."

"I like you," Dean said, "You're OK."

"I'm awesome," Bobby agreed. "Don't make me regret it."

He drove them to a bar in a small town under a mountain. Took them forty minutes on a gritted road that wound through a forest. Sam rode shotgun and Dean didn't notice.

"Welcome to the Birdseye Saloon, boys," Bobby said as he cut the engine in front of a lonely clump of buildings, and they both thought it sounded like he'd brought them here for a whole different reason than having a few beers.

The place they'd pitched up at seemed to be constructed entirely out of gnarly, shiny wood, inside and out, and as soon as he got to the door Dean came over all smiles. Especially when it was Sam and not him that Bobby arrested with a hand to the chest before they made their entrance.

"Just take it real easy in here, Sam."

"I beg your pardon?" An outraged squeak hitched in Sam's voice.

"I'm not sure you want to announce who you are."

"Jesus," said Sam as Dean pushed past him with the faintest of smirks, heading for the bar. "Freaking hunters. They're all out of their minds."

It was warm and busy in the Birdseye and nobody seemed to have noticed them come in. Sam got his bearings, followed Bobby to a quiet corner and said nervously, "So, you see anyone you know?"

Bobby had already done a quick sweep. He jerked a thumb at a guy leaning on the bar a few yards from where Dean was now in conversation with the shock-haired, heavily-tattooed woman who was serving. "Just him. His name's Coleman and I know there's a big knife under his jacket," he said. Coleman had winsomely long, blond hair curling down his back. "Don't worry, I won't be introducing you."

Sam sat. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

_What the hell are we thinking of, Bobby?_

Dean came back with three beers and what looked like a tumbler of ink with cream on top.

"You ... what is that?" Sam asked, pained.

"This, little brother, is a Union Jack, and no, you may not have one. You are way too much of a pussy for one of these bad boys."

"Don't tell me ..."

"Two shots of Jack, a splash of coke and a whole heulluva lot of Guinness," Dean said, pleased and defiant in equal measure.

"I said don't tell me."

"You know, I actually don't come here much," Bobby mentioned.

Dean cocked a head at Coleman and the unknown man standing next to him. "Yeah," he said, "not with a bunch of freaks standing around comparing the size of their dicks." He raised the glass of near-black liquid to his lips and took two large swallows. When he put it down he saw Sam and Bobby were looking at him like he'd just said or done something sociably unacceptable in a public place. "What?"

"We said a couple of drinks," Sam said.

"I have a couple of drinks," Dean responded.

"Dean, you have three drinks all in one glass."

"Sam, I think I might have had enough of your shit."

"You and me both."

"Well I'm having a good time," Bobby said, looking between them.

"Sorry," Sam said, contrite. Dean mumbled.

Bobby took a pull of his beer. "I forget," he said, "when I don't see you boys for weeks at a time, just what a pain in my ass you both are." He glanced up at the sound of the main door whooshing open. Recognition flooded his features.

"Well there's a thing," he said.

--------

A man of indeterminate age, hair pale, muffled in layers and peeling off gloves as he stood in the doorway, what looked like confusion on his face.

In fact, it was trepidation. Benedict Parmentier came from hunter-stock, so he took care when entering or leaving pretty much anyplace, even the Birdseye Saloon which he'd known since he was sixteen and his Daddy moved them from Crestone. It really didn't make him feel any better that on the only evening he'd set foot in the place for weeks, the first person he saw as the heavy panels slapped shut behind him and he finished stamping snow off his boots was Bobby Singer.

Benedict had been in the game himself - good, sharp, cold - until he got dropped on his head from a second-floor warehouse window by a demon with anger management issues. Brain surgery, a long coma, six months and a compensatory pay-out later, Benedict returned home with bits of his cerebral cortex in a scramble, feeling gentle as a lamb and uncomfortably able to touch people's emotions. Literally, touch them.

He didn't hunt anymore after that, but he could never get away from it.

As far as Benedict had always known, hunters dragged piles of shit along behind them, and sometimes one or two would pass by his neighborhood mountain, call in at the Birdseye, their souls tarnished and their spirits broken, blood on their skin. They seemed to like him. Seemed to like the way he drew the poison without even trying.

It surprised him to see Bobby here, because although Bobby would always respond to a call, he didn't generally do sociable. And there he was sitting with two strangers, practically knee-to-knee with one, shoulder-to-shoulder with the other, the table heaving with their bottles and glasses.

Benedict approached straight away, made eye contact like he'd been encouraged by the therapists, reached out a hand, and took Bobby's in it, immediately feeling that the older man's guts were seriously twisted, either by worry or dyspepsia. Maybe both.

"Long time," he said, not knowing how long. Such things were vague in his quiet, misshapen brain.

"Benedict," Bobby responded in a low, deliberate voice that made his companions stare at him. "You're looking well."

Benedict knew he wasn't, because he never really did. He glanced at the two figures flanking Bobby, not knowing them but guessing.

"Benedict, these are the Winchesters. John's boys. This is Sam here, and this is Dean."

Sam uncoiled from his seat to shake hands, seeming both confident and wary at the same time. Benedict got that from three seconds of contact. Got that Sam Winchester was powerful and scared. Powerfully scared.

Sam's brother scarcely made it off his seat. Benedict was curious to touch _him_, curious to know what a soul returned from damnation felt like.

Dean Winchester's hand gripped his, pulled away quickly, but not quick enough.

Benedict's stomach lurched as he felt the contact break.

_Je-sus_.

"Hey, Dean," he said, voice a little dry. "How're you doing?"

Dean tipped back on to his seat, reached towards the glass in front of him and then his hand swerved and went for the beer bottle instead.

"I am good," he said, eyes falling away before swigging.

Benedict glanced at Sam and then Bobby, frowning.

_Holy Crap_, he thought, _do they even know?_

"Is there something going on?" he asked. "Are you here because we're about to be invaded by a host of demons or something?"

"We're just socializing," Bobby said.

Benedict's frown deepened, but it was more perplexed than angry.

Sam's head snapped back and forth between his brother and Bobby. His shoulder was near enough to touch and Benedict felt a heady mixture of apprehension and exhileration from the almost-contact that nearly made him shout out loud.

_Sam! Jesus, what a holy fuck-up!_

"Well, Sam," was what he said, "I'm guessing you wouldn't be mighty welcome if they knew."

Sam goggled at him.

Dean snorted into his beer. "He'd be about as welcome as a case of the clap."

"Huh," Benedict said. "Hunters. They like it black and white."

"I'm fine," Sam said, "No-one knows me. Really. Benedict. Can I ... can I get you a beer?"

"All right," Benedict said, surprised again.

"I'll come," Bobby said, standing.

Dean caught his arm and angled a finger towards his glass. Bobby and Sam looked at each other.

"Oh please," said Dean, "I swear ... this is really starting to piss me off."

"Whatever," Sam said, hands raised. He stumped after Bobby.

Dean looked at him go and then wordlessly invited Benedict on to the stool opposite. He stared into his bottle for a bit, working up to a conversation. Benedict was a little bit overawed that he had any words in him at all.

"So, Benedict," he got out in the end. "Tell me. What's your deal?"

"Oh," Benedict said. "My deal. Right. Well, there's some people tell me I'm ... what you might call an ..." He hesitated before the hated word came out, braced for derision or worse. "Em-path."

"Really." Dean sat back, made a mock-impressed face. Benedict suspected that not much would seriously impress, interest or even distress Dean Winchester these days.

"An em-path," Dean mimicked. "And that's ... what ... like a better class of psychopath?"

"Not so much."

"But sfreaky ESP stuff, right?"

"Freaky? If you like. I just happen to be able to .. feel how other people ... feel."

"Which is useful how?"

Benedict didn't often have to explain himself. "Well," he said doubtfully, "maybe when you want to find out what's going on with someone, and they won't tell you."

One of Dean's eyebrows hiked in suspicion. "Just by touching them?"

"Mostly."

Dean leaned forward again. "Benedict," he said, "I so don't want to know you. And Bobby is so going to get his ass kicked."

"It's all right," Benedict assured him, "I'm not going to touch you again. Truth is, I don't even have to, it's coming off you in waves." He wagged his head slowly from side to side. "You and your brother, there's too much ... too much for me."

"Huh," Dean said, his attention suddenly caught by Sam making his way back towards them. "You feel our pain."

Benedict, who may or may not have had a sense of humor, nodded sagely.

"Oh there's pain, Dean," he said. "I feel that all the time, from everyone. But ... right now .. you .. like I say, I can't stand it, and I'm sorry for that." He too eyed Sam's approach. "And I'm sorry there's such static between you."

"Static?" Dean echoed. "There's no static."

Benedict just looked at him patiently. Sam arrived, dumped two bottles on the table.

"Bobby needs a hand," he said.

Dean made an exaggerated show of pushing back his chair and standing up. "You two," he said. "Twins separated at birth."

"What?" Sam asked but his brother lurched away.

Sam sank back down on his seat with an embarrassed smile.

"Well, so anyway ... Benedict. Do you mind me asking ..."

"What my deal is?"

"Hu-yeah .."

"Got tossed out of a window by a demon," Benedict said, "woke up an empath."

Sam's jaw dropped. "That's ... whoah ... that's ..."

"Well, you'd think. Kind of a double-edged sword really. Same as for you I suppose."

The younger Winchester seemed to want to shrug and dodge but instead he nodded bitterly.

"Like I said to Dean, I'm sorry for the static between you."

Sam stared. "It sucks," he blurted.

"Yeah," Benedict said, "It's hell not knowing, but it's worse knowing and not being able to help."

"Is that what it's like?" Sam asked, his eyes wide.

"I don't mean me," Benedict said. "I mean you."

--------------

They ate ribs and cheered up. Benedict didn't seem to feel like he fitted in and went to sit alone at the bar.

"He won't ..?" Sam asked Bobby.

"He won't," Bobby assured him. "Benedict doesn't tell what he knows."

"Kind of a useless pile of touchy-feely crap then," Dean said.

"Believe me," Bobby told him. "You're carrying less than when you walked in. You just don't know it."

An hour passed, no-one took notice of them. Dean hailed the tattooed woman for another round that only he wanted, they all drank to John, and Sam thought what he wouldn't give to have Dad here, giving them orders they didn't need to think about. How he'd carry them out gladly, without question, and let John worry about the consequences.

He wondered guiltily where the hell that thought had wormed itself from.

"The old man," he said, and tried to swallow down the lump wedged tight in his throat.

Dean stared at him a little oddly and then started on the new beer. Halfway through he lowered the bottle to the table, swallowed a belch, swiped a hand shakily across his mouth.

"Come on, dude," said Sam and reached out to get hold of Dean under the elbow. "I think it's time for bed."

Dean resisted. "I can get up by myself," he said. "Gonna hit the head ... you don' have to wafer me."

Sam had heard the slurring voice countless times during a hustle. The real thing though .. just about the Pits. "Crap, Dean, you sound wasted."

"'s a bar, genius," Dean replied.

The table rocked as he got himself to standing and set off in a loose-limbed progress across the room. Sam regarded the puddle of beer and then Bobby.

"No rules apply," he said.

Bobby rose, dug in his pocket for the pick-up's keys. "_I'm_ not about to tell him that four months in hell isn't a good enough reason," he said. "You steer, I'll bring the truck out front."

_Four months._ Sam closed his eyes as the remains of his third, and last, beer slipped down.

If only it were even that simple.

He realized he'd had his eyes closed for quite some time when a crump made them fly open again.

The unmistakeable sound of somebody falling down, hard, at the other end of the bar.

------

Dean felt pretty woozy in the restroom. The Union Jacks were beginning to churn and his reflection in the mirror was unwelcome. A stranger masking another stranger.

There was no hot water, which didn't surprise him, but didn't stop him twiddling the faucets. Dean tried, for a second or two, to imagine John but found he couldn't. He got a sudden notion that he might have lost the recall, that his visual memory of John had just evaporated.

_Fuck_. He already knew hell had screwed with his synapses in ways he was only just starting to discover, but this? No matter how hard he tried - eyes open, eyes closed - this sucked. He couldn't summon John's face. He hadn't managed Mom's for weeks, and now Dad was gone too.

Dean's stomach flipped so violently that he bent at the waist.

"Nnnnnnnn."

_Mind over matter, son._

He felt like he didn't know this pathetic jerk mumbling and quivering under the harsh strip-light. Something like heartburn caught him under the ribs. It was a normal, physical kind of pain, the kind that he wasn't going to let floor him, and he straightened up, flexed his tingling hands once or twice and then palmed open the door. Outside, the L-shaped bar room tilted first one way and then the other and he took a couple of forthright steps to try and snap himself out of it.

Dean's shoulder bounced off someone coming the other way.

"Shit," said a voice. "Careful there, boy. Hey!"

Dean looked up blearily. The man he'd barged into was standing a little back, regarding him with his brows drawn together. More puzzled than annoyed. Just behind him was the tall dude with the stupid hair. Coleman.

"I know who this is," said the man. "This is Dean Winchester."

There was a prickly silence.

"Nah, can't be, Chance. Winchester went down," Coleman corrected him. "Five or six months ago, at least. New Harmony, Indiana."

"I know that," said the other. "But this is him."

"Not possible, my man. He was taken down by dogs. Know what I mean?"

The man named Chance shook his head. "I know what happened," he persisted. "But I'm telling you. This is him."

Dean had listened to all this in a kind of irritated, disbelieving fog. Now he made to cut his way between them, but found his exit blocked. "It is Dean, isn't it?" Chance demanded and Dean just then took in that he was a broad-shouldered, burly hulk of a guy with a weather-beaten face and a nose both squashed and off-center. An ugly sonofabitch, and built like an M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank. He didn't recognize him and he didn't know why Chance would be familiar with his face. All he knew was that he felt major annoyance, and a very slight knot of panic tightening up his breathing.

"Maybe it is," Dean said, "and maybe it isn't. But either way, I'd like to just get past you here if that's not too much trouble."

Chance's meaty arm came out and pressed against Dean's chest, setting off a wave of fight-or-flight impulses that seemed to burst like little white lights in front of his eyes. "No. You're him," he said with certainty. "The guy who went downstairs. Holy Fuck, Coleman!"

Dean's gaze strayed over Chance's shoulder towards the table where Sam still sat, far enough away not to have picked up any sound or sight out of place. Of Bobby there was no sign. Benedict the psychopathic empath seemed to have gone, too.

Coleman came closer and peered into Dean's face like a he was an interesting new species at the zoo. "Yeah? Really? Fuck!"

Dean gave a little, this-is-amusing-me-for-only-a-split-second-more laugh. "Really," he said, "It's super to meet you, but I need you to let me pass."

"Hold up a minute," Chance said, "Just hold up. It's not everyday you meet a guy who got out of the Pit. I mean, now do you? Tell me, how'd you manage it, Winchester? Heard you made a deal to get yourself there, which is kind of a fucking douchey thing to do in the first place if you ask me ... so what, d'you make another one to get out?"

Something began to thrum in Dean's temple. His arms went heavy, like lead-weights hanging off his shoulders. He felt himself jostled and hardly had the strength to stay standing up. Vaguely he wondered when he'd got to be such a puny weakling.

"What was it like?" Coleman followed up. "You must have some awesome tales to tell, man."

"Yeah," said Chance, "But more important than that, why are you here? How fucking clean can _you_ be?"

Dean let himself lose it. Gladly. God knows he'd been itching to hit something for days and he felt a burst of short-lived freedom as he finally allowed the red mist to drop like a curtain. He swung, pretty fast, but the trajectory was all out of whack. His fist made a glancing contact with Chance's face, but the returning punch connecting with his jaw was straight and sure, dumping him with a clatter on to his ass. As his head bounced off the wall and he blinked against the buzzing that erupted in his ears, he saw Sam hurtling across the bar-room floor in full attack mode.

Shit.

He slapped a hand down to give himself leverage but found he couldn't get his feet to help out.

"Sam, 's'OK," he huffed. "Really, Sammy. It's OK."

_Shit._

Finally he managed to grapple his way off the floor but Sam already had Chance by the throat, backed up against an empty table, his boot heels scrabbling for purchase. Coleman was circling around the two of them like a piranha, one hand slightly behind him, ready to go for his knife.

"What the fuck!" Sam was yelling. "What the fuck is wrong with you!"

"Sam, let him go," Dean ordered as he staggered upright. "D'you hear me, Sammy? Let him go."

Sam had his hands clamped so tight around Chance's neck that the man's eyes were popping and straining. There was that twist to Sam's face, that intense harnessing of something within, that he always got when he ..... Dean saw the whole scene ripple like it was underwater. The blinking hadn't helped with the buzzing. If anything, it was getting louder, and sparks began to bleed into his peripheral vision.

Dean didn't understand why Sam was so angry - _your big brother is being a total jerk, let him get on with it_ - but he knew he didn't want him to be. When he grabbed hold of a locked forearm he could feel the sinews under Sam's skin stretched like wire. The choke-hold he had on the guy was strong enough that it would be fatal in no time at all and it didn't even feel like Sam was on full throttle.

"Sam," Dean said, realizing he had no hope of breaking the hold, "I'm telling you. Leave it alone." His voice sounded weak and unconvincing to his own ears. "Stop it!" he tried to bark. "Last chance!"

It took way too long for Sam to respond as far as Dean was concerned. Like his brother either hadn't heard or didn't actually care. What the hell the sanction was going to be if he didn't get through to him he had no idea, so Dean played what had always been his best card.

"Sammy!"

A noisy breath burst out of Sam as he finally released, jerking Dean off his arm. Chance's hand snapped up to his throat and he began gasping and flailing to get air through the crushed windpipe.

"You're crazy!" Coleman yammered, now jumping around like a giraffe on speed. "You're a freakin maniac, man!"

"You lay another finger on my brother and I'll kill you," Sam said into Chance's face. "You get that?"

"Christ," Chance croaked, backing off and attempting to take Coleman with him.

"He gets it," said Coleman. "Jesus, man. It was just a friendly question." His shoulder knocked hard and deliberately into Dean as they moved away, heading back towards the bar. Dean let himself be barged, grabbed hold of Sam's rising hand by the wrist and forced it down.

"Enough," he said, "Just ... enough, Sam. We're leaving, right?"

"What the hell," said Sam. He was breathing hard, face flaming both from anger and mortification that nearly every eye in the place was reluctantly dragging itself away from the scene and back to its own business, and he wrenched free of his brother's grip so hard that Dean nearly staggered again. "What was that even about? Dean?"

"I didn't need your help," Dean said under his breath. He felt hopelessly out of control. All he could think about was the feel of the lid of a brand-new bottle as he cracked it for the first time, the fumes springing out and burning the hairs inside his nose. The glug as he tipped it to his lips. The red-hot bite as it hit his stomach. Hurting and soothing.

"You're welcome, Dean. What the hell did you say to make him hit you?"

Dean shrugged. "I don't know. Nothin."

"He just slugged you because you look like you deserved it?"

"No," said Dean, "They were giving me some .. asking me about ... shit, Sammy, I could've handled it."

"You were on your back, man. There were two of them. What'd they say, Dean?"

Sam's fists were opening and closing by his sides. The scary intensity had not quite faded and it was making Dean feel like he was going to puke. His right hand went to his temple and he ground the heel in hard, eyes screwing shut. "It doesn't matter," he said. "Don't ... " He felt his upper body sway and then right itself.

"OK, you're drunk," said Sam reaching for his elbow once again. "Let's get out of here."

Dean opened his eyes in time to sidestep.

He felt drunk all right, but knew that if he stopped drinking now he wouldn't be able to stand up for falling down. That had its attractions, frankly, but ... if he had more to aim for ... he figured he might manage that state of nirvana he was after and yet knew didn't exist.

Nirvana. Yeah, a Kurt roofie special, just for the night. He knew there was a bottle of something in one of his jacket pockets back at Bobby's.

Temporary suicide - accent on the temporary. Dean might have taken a shot at explaining what he thought was his longer-term plan if Sam wasn't terrifying the crap out of him.

"All right!" he snapped, putting one foot in front of the other on the way to the door.

"You're getting to be a mess," Sam said at his back.


	5. Chapter 5

The engine of Bobby's pick-up was running, the headlights beaming into a bank of snow. The front wheels had mounted the sidewalk in the rush. When the Winchesters came slithering down the steps outside the Birdseye, Bobby ducked his head to get a look.

Dean was walking as if he no longer had knee-caps. It was possible that only Sam's puppet-master grasp was keeping him upright.

"What?" Bobby said as they got in. "What took you so long?"

"Dean was picking a fight," Sam said. He'd really put his shoulder into slamming the door.

"As far as I remember it," Bobby said, "that's what he does." He twisted to look behind and pursed his lips in a silent whistle.

"I didn't pick any fight," Dean mumbled at him. "Leamy alone."

"Jesus, Bobby," Sam went on as the wheels span noisily before they swung back on to the street. "I know just the place, you said. Rare and friendly, you said. Who were those guys?"

"Easy," Bobby said, eyes on the mirror. He could about make out Dean's jaw-line, pale in the passing light. "They like to flap their mouths off is all."

"And Benedict?"

"Benedict's all right," Bobby said. "Every hunter needs to meet Benedict at least once in their lives."

They hit the forest road, were plunged into black. Sam was practically humming with nervous tension but didn't seem to have anything else to say right now.

Bobby let it go for a couple of miles and then he cleared his throat. "Everything all right in the back there?"

"No," Dean said, "might be .. you know ...."

"Oh that's perfect. You want me to stop?"

"Stop."

The pick-up skidded slightly on the icy road as Bobby applied the brakes. The rear door squeaked open and they both heard Dean's boots sink into the old snow on the roadside. The boots walked off evenly into the dark. After a minute or two Sam said,

"Should I?"

"He might walk face first into a tree if you don't," Bobby said. "And why don't you eejits wear those damn coats I went to so much trouble to find ... you're a couple of fuckin babies, I swear to God."

Sam looked at him.

"Yeah," Bobby grouched, "I know. Discussion for another day."

Sam climbed out and stood where he was. "Dean?" he called. "You all right?"

He took a few paces, anxiety niggling under his irritation. The pick-up's engine rattled behind him and a there was a cold wind.

Just when he thought he might be about to lose it and start yelling and crashing about amongst the trees, a figure loomed up towards him out of the black.

Dean narrowed his eyes and tried to walk through him but Sam put out both arms and caught hold. His brother's teeth were clacking. He was freezing and impatient and totally on the edge. Apparently not sick, though.

"Nothing doing," Dean said, struggling to get free. "My guts are good. I'm good." His boots slid and he nearly went down. "Could use a drink though."

"Can you stay on your feet for like more than two seconds?"

"Off me," Dean said.

"Walking around in the freakin woods, Bobby!" Sam exploded when Dean had finished patting at the door handle and got his hand round it. "I mean, come on!"

Before they moved off again, Bobby stared ahead through the windshield before taking a significant breath. "So," he murmured, "I'm just going to drive."

-------

Dean was a man on a mission when they got back to the Yard.

They'd hardly crunched to a halt before he'd bolted out of the pick-up and set off for the door, Sam stomping behind in long strides. Bobby whistled to get Dean's attention, threw the keys to him in a high arc and Dean caught them, sending Sam a spiky look to say "see what I did there?"

He had a bit more trouble getting them in the lock.

Sam stood behind him, breath misty in the freezing night air.

"You want ...?" he began.

Dean stiffened in annoyance. "If you'd like to get out of my light," he said.

Sam stepped back. "Why don't you calm down," he said. "Whatever it is you want will still be there."

Dean didn't answer. Finally he managed the lock and bumped open the door. Sam knew he probably shouldn't, but he just couldn't help himself, tracking Dean across the room, through the kitchen and into the back. His brother flicked the light on and began rummaging tetchily through a pile of clothes on a chair. Sam stood in the doorway. Eventually Dean found the jacket he was looking for and Sam watched him unravelling it, fretfully and without much success.

"What have you lost?" Sam asked, although he knew.

"Old time number seven brand," Dean said. "Quality." He nodded. "Made from cave water."

"Made from ...? No it's not," Sam said at once, unable to stop himself, even though he knew he was splitting hairs with someone way beyond the capacity for accuracy and logic.

"Tis," said Dean, nodding again. "Really. Water in the caves." His hand waved. "Caves. Springs. Good water." He was looking straight at Sam now, and all of a sudden confusion crossed his face.

"What?" Sam asked. "What is it?"

Dean carried on staring at him, wrinkling his forehead slightly as he thought something through. "I'm fucked, Sam," he said, and jumbled his shoulders in an expression of vague. "Fucked-up."

"Really."

"Might fuck you up too, 'septs too late, you're already a whole new level of fucking fuck-up."

Sam puffed a breath out through closed lips, made a noise like an old school-bus trundling up the road. "You've been doing it my entire life, Dean, so I wouldn't worry."

Dean clutched at his chest, pawed at it as if something was suddenly loose in there. "That right?" he said. "We being down and dirty here? Is that what Benedict does when he lays his freaky psycho hands on you?"

"Yeah," Sam said. Then, "I don't know." Another pause. "Maybe."

"Huh," said Dean, considering.

"Does it help though?" Sam asked, walking over to take hold of the small bottle that Dean had just managed to wrestle out of the inside pocket of his jacket. "This? Does it make any of it better?"

Dean watched it plucked out of his grasp and weaved a hand to follow it. "Hell no," he said as if that were perfectly obvious. "It's burning my guts out and messing with my head." A knowing smile. "But, Sammy ... I gotta tell you ..." He tilted, righted himself, curled his fingers round the neck of the bottle, " ... there's jus' a little, _teeny_ moment ... when it takes the edge off." He let go for a second to measure the infinitesimal moment with a thumb and forefinger and then swiped at the bottle, picking it out of Sam's resisting grip. "Doesn' las' long." His eyes were straying off-focus over the tip of Sam's ear. "But jus' that moment, y'know ... 's good." He gave another small smile, losing twenty years in the process, like hope did actually spring eternal. From caves, or wherever.

Sam felt pain through his mid-section. "Dean ..."

Dean's chin tipped up slightly, and his expression morphed to borderline aggressive. He took a series of long swallows, like he was chugging water on a hot day, eyeballing Sam while he did so.

"It's going to be time soon," Sam said, "time to stop."

"You stop," Dean said, vocal chords strangled after the impact of that much liquor that quickly.

Sam didn't want to hear, but he asked anyway. "What does that mean?"

Dean coughed. "Came over all Boston Strangler on me back there, Sammy."

"Guy knocked you down, Dean, and you weren't getting back up. There were two of them and if you're not talking more bullshit than usual then they didn't have any reason for it. Didn't seem quite fair, that's all. Made me mad."

Dean was rocking backwards and forwards at an alarming rate now. "Well OK, but there's mad as in stop beating on my brother you assholes, and then there's mad as in ... I can snap your puny human neck because I'm a kick-ass demonic boy-king _freak_."

"I was mad," Sam repeated through his teeth.

"In the demon zone."

"Whatever. It doesn't mean anything."

"Like hell ..." Dean began, but the very word seemed to act like a poison on his system. His eyelids fluttered and he swallowed, made a noise like he was about to lose his last three meals. "Sam," he said, "I can't ..." There was an attempt to lift the bottle to his lips, but then his arm changed direction and he held it out to Sam in a shaky hand. Sam snaffled it cleanly, saw the legs go and had just enough strength in his other arm to be able to catch his brother on the way down and lower him to the bed.

Dean was where he wanted to be.

Sam slid his arm out from under the weight of the slack body, laying the bottle cautiously on the floor. Then he did what he could, hauling both boots off and unpicking the bedcovers from the mattress at each side, folding them up round Dean so they nearly met in the middle. He left the construction loose enough that Dean could fight his way out if he got sick or had a bad re-entry. The human tortilla took a noisy breath and muttered as he was disturbed but was, for the moment, far from capable of being manhandled awake.

"Crap, Dean," Sam said out loud. He bent and picked up the bottle. "And just ... fuck this," he added.

In the bathroom he tipped the remains of the bottle down the sink. It ran away in amber circles, left the room smelling of liquor.

"Sorry," Sam said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

--------------

Bobby was standing in the kitchen with his arms folded in the dark.

"Runaway train," he commented as Sam came padding in.

"Not even close, Bobby," said Sam, "and I don't think I'm helping."

"You boys need to lay low until you find a job," Bobby decided, making a sharp left turn, "or until one comes to you."

"Yeah, about that." Sam rubbed his forehead slowly with the back of his hand. "I might have turned up something today, thought I might go and look into it."

"Solo?"

"I'm just going to take a look, Bobby, see if it's our kind of gig."

"You should work it together, Sam, or not at all."

Sam made a thinky face. Bobby could tell that he was just on the borders of telling him to butt the fuck out because he wasn't their Dad.

"Really, Bobby," he managed. "He needs some in the bank."

"He'll .. bust your balls if we finds out you've gone on a hunt without him."

"So let him."

Bobby knew well that when Sam decided something, he wasn't real good at letting it go.

_Kid drives me crazy, Bobby!_

John, standing right here in the kitchen, shouting with joyous laughter after recounting some tale of Sammy inviting strangulation with his brilliance and stubbornness. Laughing, and then shaking his head.

_Wish Dean'd drive me that crazy_.

Sam had flopped on the couch, laptop on his knees.

Oh this was so not a good idea. Bobby's oesophagus told him as much and he poked it with two fingers.

"Guess you'd better caffeinate," he said reluctantly, reaching for the kettle.

------

Something stiletto-sharp poked insistently at the soft insides of Dean's skull.

His chest hurt, too, which made him curl, knees to ribs. 

When the pain faded out for a second he felt a bright puff of air across his sleeping brow.

_The laugh he started Sammy has finished and it's still in the car with them. Everything is all right._

Even Dean's subconscious knew that everything was not all right.

He relaxed a bit, steeling himself, but he couldn't hold it off. The sucker punch came, as it always did, a crowd of newly-minted memories that swarmed into his head like locusts and swamped all the rest. The car, the laugh, Sammy.

They attacked thick and fast from a dark-red sky, rounds of ammunition clattering against his closed lids, piercing him so hard that when he came to, all he could think of once more was reaching for his gun and emptying a full clip straight into his brain.

Dean stuttered for help while his eyes were still shut but he knew instinctively that no-one was there.

------

Bobby did a round of the yard with Dog, flashlight in hand. The snow was hard now, impacted and covered in crystal. Smoke from an earlier fire was still drifting up out of the chimney stack. He bolted the gates shut, let Dog dig and snuffle for a while, and then headed back to the house.

"Winfield," Sam said as he came in. "Straight through on I-90?"

"Reckon. What've you got?"

"I don't know yet, could be nothing."

"Secretive sonofabitch, ain't you? Just like your Daddy."

"Gonna crash here and head out early."

"Don't think you should bail on him, Sam."

"No-one's bailing on him."

Bobby's heart was hurting worse than ever.

_Zantac_.

He fed Dog, doused the fire and finally left Sam dozing off on the couch.

_God, don't let this thing swallow these two boys up. Not these boys._

------

Dean couldn't judge anymore where he began or ended, if he was hanging or falling.

The heat and noise was so vast, so immense, that he had no idea of his place in it. Just that he was twitching like a clump of cells under a microscope.

He scrubbed at blood and skin and tissue, warm on his hands, while Alastair wouldn't stop the fuck hectoring him, like a drill sergeant who never, ever went away.

"Dean! .... Dean! .... you ... sonofabitch ... Dean!"

Dean couldn't tell if he was on or off the rack, if he had hands on the ends of his arms or not. He got one elbow up, tried to make contact, knock Alastair's teeth out, even if he got a slash to the throat for his trouble.

"Damn it, you ... Dean .. come on, man. It's me. It's Sam. Dean ... Dean, please ...."

Alastair being Sam.

Didn't that just about knock the crap out of everything.

Dean stuttered again, tried to force in enough breath to shout.

_Go fuck yourself, you slimy, murdering piece of shit. _

His body shook like a boneless sack, shaking and shaking until his teeth rattled in his gums.

"Dean ..." breathed a voice. Desperate and sad and begging him. "Dean ...."

Air on his cheeks, cool air. His jaw ached as he sucked hard to get at some of it and he realized that there was water on his face, stinging water trailing from his eyes and sliding over his cheekbones.

Help, he wanted to say. Help.

And then Dean caught his breath as the world rushed up. He heard the ragged inhalation clearly, felt it rasp over his tonsils, felt his lungs expand just enough, felt a white hot pain blow up in his head.

"Oh my ... Jesus!" yelped Sam's voice, and Dean realized he was on his hands and knees puking violently on to the carpet between the beds in Bobby's back room.

"Bobby, for God's sake," he heard Sam say, "he's .... he's .... "

"He's _not_," came Bobby's face from what seemed like far away. "Just keep his airway clear."

Someone strong had hold of the back of his neck and Dean was confused about why that was and what they were trying to make him do. Every time he reached to expel more of the crap that was filling him to the brim, he felt a palm touch flat on his chest.

"It'll be all right ... you'll be ... all right, Dean ... you will, you will ...."

Don't let go, he wanted to sob, don't you let me go.

Once some of the canker had released, he had just enough time to draw in half a breath before the waves hit, relentless waves that expelled nothing, even though his mind was screaming at his body to get it out, just get it out, and Sam's voice was somewhere there behind it all.

"Oh god, Dean, oh god ... please .... please stop now."

What the hell. Sammy was all snotty and whiny and ... blubbing.

Dean stopped, although he thought he might never bother to breathe again. Too hard, too repetitive, too damn pointless. He couldn't even close his mouth, it was hanging open like he was brain-dead and he couldn't summon the cojones to even hack. But then someone - _was that Sam? did he have like the strength of ten freaking men all of a sudden?_ - was guiding him up, and his feet were dragging because his knees were still absent.

"Damn, Bobby, he's practically catatonic," Sam was saying and he sounded strange.

"Sit him down."

Something soft met his butt. He kept his eyes shut until the voices should gain more familiarity, feel a little more safe.

"OK, Dean. It's OK. You're here, you're back." A hand on his shoulder, calm.

Bobby. A tear pricked Dean's eye but stayed where it was.

"He's not back, Bobby ... come on, Dean, open your eyes, snap out of it."

Sammy. Curling his hands around Dean's where they were fisted in his lap.

"It's really over, it's all over, you're here. Please, Dean."

Bobby and Sammy. Both here, watching him come undone.

"You getting anything?"

"Not a damn thing." A tentative pat to the face. Dean wanted to swat it right away but couldn't move a muscle. "Not sure he knows what's going on."

Union Jacks burnt like fuck on the way up, he knew that much.

"Dude," he got out, trying to lift his head and failing.

"OK," Sam said on a shaky exhalation, hands tightening. "We got him."

"Shit," Dean managed, cracking both eyes at the same time. He felt Sam's hands uncurl, and then touch down on his knees.

Sammy wasn't letting go.

"Shit," Dean said again, "Fuck .." He tried to get a hand to his mouth but all he got was a pile of fingers swatting uselessly against his chin. "That was .... " but then he wished he hadn't thought what it was.

"Here," came Bobby's voice, gruff and scared and soft all at the same time, nudging at his lips with a cup. "Have some water."

Dean pushed at it, shaking his head. "Let me up," he said, feeling like the two of them were crowding him out. "I need ..."

"You gonna puke?" Sam demanded.

"Need the friggin bathroom."

He was on his feet in one smooth move.

"Whoa ... Jesus, Dean ... "

Sam had followed him up and caught one arm as he listed to the side. "Are you sure you ....?"

"Sammy, I got it."

He could tell Sam really didn't want to let go. He could tell that Sam really wanted to wrap him up in his arms and hug him to death.

_I can't do that, Sam. I can't do that right now._

Somehow he got himself round the end of the bed, into the bathroom, and sandwiched a layer of wood between them.

"OK, Dean," he heard through the door, could imagine Sam's hand pressed flat against it. "OK, so the drinking doesn't work. You're getting that, yeah? It's making things worse." A pause, enough for an awesome bitchface to have formed. "Dean? Crap, man, are you even standing up? Would you just say something?"

Dean leaned his temple against the cool of the mirror over the sink, wondering how he was going to manage to puke again without Sam battering the door down to get in.

"Sam!" he called, not much power in it.

"Yeah, Dean. I'm here."

Dean brushed his lower lip with his knuckles. He watched himself speaking in a raw voice that was costing him blood to keep even. "I need coffee, brother. Get me some coffee."

There was an audible expletive on the other side of the door. The hard, resigned plunk of a hand on the wood. Then silence. Dean sagged in relief.

_You sorry, pansy-ass, fucking girl, Winchester._

The voice in his head might have been him, although it might equally have been Alastair.

He did what he always did straight after. Covered his face in cold water. It was freezing, too, an icy blast coming from the depths of Bobby's pipes, and Dean kept his hands under the flow until they were aching.

Up at the small window he could see snow on the ledge outside.

Early morning, cold and wintry, South Dakota, here on earth.

Dean breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. It was whisper-soft. Then he unlocked the door and walked out.

Sam and Bobby were standing in the room outside, waiting. Sam hadn't gone to get coffee after all, the two-faced little brat. He and Bobby had been standing there, listening.

"Man, Sam ... hangover from hell," Dean said.

No reaction.

Dean swung towards Bobby. "Sorry about the new pattern on your carpet," he apologized.

Nope. Not working.

They were looking at him like they really couldn't bear to look at him, like he was seriously the walking dead.

"Damn," Dean said, and he reached for Sam, found him warm and solid, bracing for the weight. "I need this to stop, don't I?"


	6. Chapter 6

A/N Many thanks to all who've read and reviewed. I decided to finish up before Show next goes out over in LuckyPeopleWhoGetSupernaturalFirstLand. Maybe this means I cut the story off in its prime *g* but I don't think so. The boys deserve a break. Which is not to say of course that things won't all go to crapola again at some future date *nods wisely*

Sam found his nine-hour round-trip to Winfield a bit of a blast.

For a start he was driving a beat-up Dodge Challenger which looked about as roadworthy as any car might that had been run off the road by a truck sometime in 1972. Bobby had got quite agitated about him not taking the Impala, and Sam had listened in the end. The Dodge was kind of cool, but it was a creaker and a grinder. Sam couldn't read engines so he was pretty much expecting it to roll to a halt any second.

He wasn't sure about the job he'd turned up either. It could be a steaming pile of nothing, or it could be something that he probably shouldn't even fantasize about tackling solo. The latter thought gave him a little stomach flip that he interpreted as a thrill.

Then there was the usual guilt-resentment combo jabbing him in the ribs every five seconds, for having left Dean when he obviously didn't know which way was up.

His brother hadn't improved much after the second time they'd picked him off the floor. Still pasty, foul-mouthed and tending to the apologetic. Sam had stuck doggedly with Dean's unsteady pacing back and forth across the ground floor of the house until a lucky combination of food and tylenol tugged him under again.

"I'm going, Bobby," Sam had said in a low voice, caught between a sharp desire to leave and an overwhelming urge to stay. Watching his brother descending from scrappy doze to unwilling slumber was painful. "We need a plan."

Sam was sure of that.

"Maybe this ain't it?" Bobby had muttered, but he hadn't come up with anything else.

There were layers of unfinished business awaiting beyond the confines of the Yard, Dean was shadow-boxing something that put his usual demons into the shade and making an unholy shambles of it, so Sam knew he had to take charge and Bobby knew he had to let him.

After breaking into a cellar where a man had allegedly self-immolated to the strains of Wagner, and talking to four material witnesses at two different addresses, Sam reluctantly consigned the job to the steaming-pile-of-nothing pile and spent the better part of three hours driving in blustery snowfall on I-90, bracing himself for the worst that could possibly happen when he got back.

When he was through the gates, he saw that the Impala had been driven out from under cover and was standing as if ready to take off any second. Dog was visible jumping up and down inside the house, over-excited but apparently tethered. Both these things told Sam that his brother was on the move. He slewed the Dodge to a halt and climbed out. Bobby got to him first.

"Woke up, found you gone, totally lost it," he summarized the last couple of hours hastily, while Sam let the door of the car clunk shut behind him and watched Dean picking up pace across the snowy ground as if it were happening in slow motion.

He got ready to be slammed, and slammed he was, back crunching against metal, arms pinned. The air whooshed out of him and Sam was totally surprised that Dean had that much gas left in his tank.

"You lying, freaking little bitch!"

"Hey," Sam began, both miffed and panicky.

"You've been screwing around with that black-eyed skank again." It wasn't even a question.

The diagonal brace across Sam's chest tightened. His right arm was sealed against the Dodge by the elbow, his left trapped by Dean's full weight.

"Oh you have," Dean breathed. "I can see it, I can smell it on you ..."

"Haven't," Sam said. When he took a breath he got a sense that his brother was a lot shakier than he sounded and knew, with an uncomfortable flush of energy, that he could throw Dean aside, through the air, on to the freezing ground, in one instant of momentum, if he so decided. "Get off me, Dean."

"Or what? You'll break my neck? Here, show us what you're made of, freak. Help yourself."

"Dean ..." Bobby warned. "Get a grip, boy. Maybe you should just listen to what he's got to say."

"Listen to him!" Dean whined. "You've got to be kidding me, Bobby. I'm not listening to him, I should be smacking some fucking sense into him."

"You two do any brawling on my property," Bobby snapped, "and so help me I will call the cops on your asses."

Sam filled his lungs and broke out of the hold. He wasn't sure if he'd done it by superior strength in the end or if Dean had actually decided to let him go. The snow was beginning to dance around them.

"I just went to check out something that could be a case," he began and Dean's face screwed up as if he was trying to follow a foreign language and not making any headway at all. "It was a bunch of weird, creepy bullshit, but it wasn't our kind of weird, creepy bullshit. And there's nothing going on, Dean, I've told you a hundred times. Just trying to get us back on track."

It all sounded entirely reasonable, but Dean was still looking at him as if he couldn't work it out, any of it. He began rooting around in his front jeans pocket and Sam felt a winding twist of anxiety.

"What are you ...? Dean, what are you doing?"

Dean produced the Impala's keys and shook them at him wordlessly.

"I think we should all go in out of this weather and just take a little stock," Bobby decided, looking as if being the voice of reason was starting to stick in his craw.

"Screw that," Dean said. He looked at Sam, long and hard, like he was evaluating him and Sam knew that the flat, emotionless tone was the cue for his brother to walk out, walk off, leave.

"Dude, the car hates the snow," Sam said, and his words began to tumble out as fast as the flakes. "I wasn't with Ruby, I didn't do anything wrong. Don't just .... he's insane, Bobby, where the hell does he think he's going?"

The Impala coughed into life. The wiper blades were waving crazily back and forth across the windshield. Sam could see Dean's arm slung across the back of the seat as he twisted ready for a violent reverse. The tires span, gripped, span again. Then Dean seemed to get her under control and gunned her forward, passing within inches of Sam's feet and executing a sliding right turn towards the gates.

"Car really doesn't like the snow," Sam repeated feebly as the tail-lights got swallowed up by the dark.

Bobby clapped two hands on his shoulders and began to steer him back towards the house.

--------

The Impala really didn't like the snow.

And Dean really didn't like driving her in the snow and the dark when he felt so wired. The feeling of neurones firing off at will was kind of trippy and every time his phone rang it set his teeth on edge, made him want to throw it out the car. He knew he was driving a little too fast for the conditions, but thought he was being a bit of a damn hero all things considered, seeing as he was concentrating so fucking hard on keeping to the road instead of indulging the sizeable part of him that wanted to drive at speed into a wall.

He needed a drink.

No. What he _needed_ was to draw a line in the sand. In the snow. Whatever. And then he needed a drink.

_Slow down._

It didn't seem to do any good telling himself that. Before long he was striding more than walking into the Birdseye Saloon, covered in snow, feeling half frozen and breathing in the scent of alcohol like he was a bloodhound on the trail. It warmed his chest, sent endorphins skipping through his head.

Dean stood for a moment getting his bearings, scanning along the bar from one end to the other. It was busy in the Birdseye tonight, snowstorm notwithstanding. No Benedict though.

He moved a few steps, taking in every corner, just in case.

Just one lousy question and the emo-medium isn't freaking here. Bobby said he's nearly always here.

Dean re-focused. He sniffed the smell again, watched the bartender pushing a drink towards a guy in a red and blue plaid shirt. His hackles rose.

Four, five, six long strides across the floor. Dean couldn't believe he felt so clear-headed, given that he'd been alternately spewing up his guts or collapsing all over Sam not so many hours ago.

"Excuse me," he said, tapping the plaid-shirt guy smartly on the back of the broad shoulder. Chance let go of the drink he had just reached for with his big fist and turned around.

Dean allowed just long enough to be properly recognized, then he smacked him hard in the mouth, felt the jolt all the way along his arm, through his shoulder blade and down his spine. The blow was hard enough, and sweet enough, to send Chance toppling over a bar stool and backwards on to the floor, scattering people and chairs. Pandemonium broke out but it was all extraneous sound effects. Dean hardly heard it. He took one more step, leaned down. "That's what I meant to say the other day," he explained. "In answer to your question. Good hunting." He looked at his knuckles and frowned. Then he turned away, walked straight back across the room and out of the door.

He was amped, he knew it. Got a head-rush of euphoria so delightful that for a few minutes he hardly felt the cold.

By the time he'd put some distance between himself and the Birdseye, realized that he couldn't actually remember where he'd left the car and found himself on an unfamiliar street, it was too late. Lights that could well turn out to be a LiquorMart were already in his sights and he had change in his pocket.

Slow down, he told himself. But he couldn't.

-------

Bobby didn't say anything until about the tenth call. He actually had a whole speech backed up and ready to go, but he was nervous it might find its way out before he was good and ready.

"Maybe he just needs to drive around in a blizzard until he realizes he's being an ass," he suggested as Sam jiggled his cell in his hands.

"He could just answer," Sam said grimly, "'stead of being a complete jerk."

"Uhhh ...." Bobby found himself saying, "your brother was one marble short of a breakdown earlier today, kid ... you remember that, right? I'm not saying you shouldn't have gone, if you thought it was a job but ... Dean's not exactly thinking straight. You know ... not reading the map. He's about as messed up as you'd expect, and then some. I ain't surprised he's started bouncing off the walls, don't know why you should be."

That would be the speech then. Give or take a few clumsy additions.

Sam crumpled slightly, flipped open his phone. He didn't make another call though, just waved his thumb over the numbers.

"He'll find his way home again," Bobby said, deciding that anything but foolish optimism would be too much to stand at this point. He glanced at the window and the curtain of white flakes falling through the dark. "Wish he'd taken a fuckin coat though."

---------

"Oh that is gross," said a girl's voice right across the motel room.

Dean found it weird because it had all been quiet a moment ago and he didn't know where the fuck she'd come from.

"Gross and sad and just all kinds of wrong," the girl went on.

She sounded young, and her voice was raspy and whiny at the same time, a twenty-something with a head-cold who just wanted to go home now please.

Dean shifted in the bed. It felt like his pillow was covered in broken glass.

"Huh?" Someone else was unsure if they were interested. Another girl, maybe older.

Dean didn't want to know what they'd seen, couldn't be bothered to work out why there were two girls in his motel room. Maybe Sam left the TV on. He just wanted to sleep.

"There! Look, there's a guy lying in the road. Ewww. Let's get out of here."

Footsteps crunched uncertainly nearby but didn't come too close to the bed. Dean kept his eyes shut, tried to hunker under the blankets.

"Oh my ... wow ... you ... god, that's .... bless your compassionate little heart, Suze, but we can't leave him, can we? It's minus frigging fifteen out here. He's covered in snow."

"So call 911 or something, but I'm not touching him. He might be dead. Or weird, or something."

"We should check he's alive, really we should."

"You check, Mother Teresa."

Dean lost the thread of the conversation, felt himself drifting, but then the older girl's voice sounded much closer to his ear and he wanted to tell her to shut the fuck up.

"Oh man ... this guy's a mess and he's not even an old guy. He ... oh yeah yuck ... he's thrown up and his head's all bloody and jeez he reeks of ... yup, he's tile-faced and he fell down."

"He probably does it every Saturday night, Lil."

"Yeah but maybe not when it's this freakin cold. I'm calling the cops. Shit, these gloves ... I can't get at my freakin phone. Come on, Suze, don't just walk off and leave me here with this."

"Someone's coming, Lil, let's just get out of here. Not our problem, babe."

A stretch of silence. Dean let himself roll towards sleep, pleased that the girls had gone. Then a new voice disturbed him, tantalizingly familiar.

"Oh God, you're cold, man. You feel .... cold." A palm lay against skin for a moment, pressing down on his forehead. Dean struggled to get his eyes open, knew he'd failed, knew he hadn't actually moved anything at all, worried about this parade of mumbling freaks wandering through his room.

"You're so cold," the voice repeated with a shiver. "And there's something ... it's not all .... but I can't ... I'm sorry, man." The hand sprang away as if burned. Dean was relieved they'd all finally decided to leave him alone The voice returned, softer now. "It's OK, Dean. I'll get you out of here. Just give me a minute."

You can have all the minutes you like, Dean thought. Just let me go to sleep.

----

Bobby got them from the Yard to the Jeffrey Weiner Medical Center in just under two hours, a journey that would have taken half that time if it hadn't been for the weather. Sam had spent most of the trip working himself up into a frenzy and while Bobby parked the pick-up he cut loose in a blurring sprint across the gritted car-lot, followed the blue signs like he'd been told, and nearly took out a pair of double-doors as he barreled through them.

There was an elevator. And there were stairs.

Sam's heart couldn't deal with the elevator, with the standing and waiting, the dings and the pauses. He began up the echoing stairs, white and shiny. On the third floor he had to wait for a gurney being wheeled in front of him up the narrow corridor, but when it turned the corner he saw Benedict twenty yards away leaning on a pay-phone with his arms crossed.

"Sam," said Benedict as he charged up, puffing and blowing with a head-tingling mixture of exertion and anxiety. "You came."

Sam gulped in air, shocked that there should be any doubt. "What did you think?"

"First of all," Benedict said, uncrossing his arms and gesturing downwards to signal calm. "You're Bill. And he's Ted. You're my cousins. I kind of worked out a story."

"Bill," Sam said, following along, hoping Benedict was taking him somewhere useful. "Ted. Cousins."

"Good. And second of all ..."

"Yes?"

"They think Sam is his best buddy."

"Sam. His best buddy." Sam breathed in and out through his nose, still hoping.

"Yeah. Ted and Sam. They were on the ... front-line .... somewhere. Helluva situation. Nobody's fault exactly, but the whole battalion were kind of screwed over. Ted got an honorable discharge. But he's kind of fucked-up."

A weird laugh popped out of Sam at that.

"Yeah," Benedict went on, veering back into what suddenly seemed like reality and making Sam's blood run several degrees colder, "So, when I got him here Dean was kind of giving them the whole balls of fire and exploding body parts thing and they decided they knew what it was all about so I just kind of went along with it."

"Let me get this straight," Sam said, holding both hands up in front of him as if it would stop the flood of disbelief, "They think he's back from ....a war, or from ... they don't just think he's crazy?"

"Oh, buckets of," Benedict said. "They'd really like us to leave quietly, deal with it in the family." He flexed one hand as if he was trying to get the circulation going. "Not that they said so, but when I met the doctor guy ... I could ... yeah."

"In the family?" Sam knew he was sounding like a dork but he couldn't help it and it was giving him time to process.

"Yeah, you know. Your Mom and Dad. My Aunt and Uncle."

Benedict had clearly woven a whole life for them all in the last few hours.

"All right, fine." Sam accepted the premise, decided he could run with it if he had to. "But what, Benedict, what the fuck actually happened?"

"Found him in the gutter down the street from the Birdseye."

"Oh crap," Sam said.

"Cracked his head open on the sidewalk. You know, I could deal with that, but he was cold, really really cold, like not shivering anymore cold. So I brought him here."

"And how is he?"

"Well you'd better go see. He's just in there, but I should tell you, he's not making much sense. I'd vote for getting him out of here as soon as we can, though. Before their computers start smoking with all the shit I've been feeding them." Benedict smiled mildly and then put his hand out and brushed the top of Sam's shoulder. "Maybe just take in your little brother stuff, leave all the rest for now." He took the hand away, flicked invisible dust from the palm.

Sam wasn't at all sure he could take the advice, if advice it was, but he pushed open the door Benedict indicated and walked on in.

Dean was lying in a bed with his eyes closed, and he was pissed about the IV line in his arm judging by his expression. He looked grubby and tired, bruised down one side of his face and he had stitches in his head. His breathing was fairly steady, as if he was concentrating on the action, and his lashes flickered and twitched in uneasy rest.

"Hey," Sam said quietly, resting a hand on the nearest arm. Dean's skin felt a little cool but his color wasn't too freakishly bad. He opened his eyes.

"Sammy," he said at once, like he had something urgent to tell him.

"So .. yeah, I'm here," Sam said, stroking up and down the arm as if it needed warming. "What's going on with you?"

------

For the most part of an hour or two, it seemed like everyone was reading from a different page.

Bobby didn't come in because Benedict hadn't thought to invent so much as a walk-on part for him in the broad and faintly homely drama he'd scripted. So he stayed outside in the pick-up waiting for bulletins and holding out for an early release and some dinner before dark descended yet again.

Sam got schizophrenic talking about his brother's best buddy Sam to a nurse who kept asking about him.

"God bless all our boys in the field," she said fervently, more than once, "And God help them."

There was a senior kind of a doctor who clearly thought Dean's nonsense was down to nothing but booze and the confusing effect of moderate hypothermia on the control centers of his brain. And then there was another, junior guy who'd just as clearly been on the receiving end of some pretty graphic babblings and didn't want to let Dean out of his sight until half the military's psych department had been shipped in to check him out.

As Dean got warmer and more hydrated, he got gradually more lucid, and finally wised up to the fact that Sam was hunched so near over the bed he was practically sitting in there with him, and holding one of his hands between both of his own.

It felt better than anything Dean could possibly imagine at that moment.

"Leggo," he said without pulling away.

"Oh hey," Sam said, and squeezed hard. "You making any sense yet?"

"Zit time I got up?" Dean asked, and yanked against the line.

"It might be," Sam said, "you remember what happened?"

"Yeah," Dean said. "I remember." He blinked, frowning. "I keep smelling it, Sam. Keep hearing it."

Evidently not quite lucid enough to have buckled on his armor yet. His hand still lay quietly in Sam's hold.

"No, no, no, " Sam said to him firmly, his heart thumping with a dull ache in the base of his throat. "You hit your head is all, got a little messy."

"Maybe." Dean moved uncomfortably, looked down at their hands. Sam could see a shift play out across Dean's face but he still didn't pull away. "How about you?"

"I drove to Winfield, looked into a job that wasn't a job and then I drove back again. And my brother called me a lying bitch."

"Really."

"It kind of sucked."

"He sounds like a jerk." Dean pulled his hand free on the last word.

"So, Bobby's waiting outside, and Benedict's trying to confuse them in here, but I don't think we've got too much time left. You feeling like you can walk?"

Dean pulled in a breath, yanked again at the line and then grimaced as he tugged it right out. "I can walk."

"Here," said Sam, slapping a wad of tissue and gauze against the trickle of watery blood and fluid inside Dean's elbow. "I brought clothes. You pretty much trashed what you had on, though Benedict saved your jacket."

"Benedict," Dean said, dropping the wad and hopping barefoot on to the floor. His face blanched, just as Sam knew it would, and he put both hands out and clutched at Sam's sleeves to stop himself falling.

"I got you," Sam said, businesslike.

"I know you have, Sammy," Dean told him, working his jaw.

The door opened and Benedict put his head round. "We need to move," he said. "I think I've about run this thing into the ground. Hey, Dean, good to see you."

"Benedict," Dean said again.

"Try not to puke til we're out the building, okay, Dean?" Sam said anxiously. "You need help there?"

Dean's boots were the last thing on. They were still wet through, left a set of damp footprints across the floor of the room.

"Stairs," Benedict said, leading the way as they emerged into the corridor.

Down in the lot Bobby had been running the engine for the last twenty minutes with both doors open.

"Listen," said Benedict, when they'd more or less got Dean lined up to make it into the pick-up. "Sam, I got your car over the other side of the lot. Rescued the keys before they incinerated his jeans."

"It's not his car," Dean said, holding on hard to the roof. He made an ugly face. "Man, I loved those jeans."

"I'll come," Sam said. "See you back, Bobby."

"B-Benedict," Dean stuttered for the third time, not being able to get beyond that. He turned a little, put out his hand and then dropped it. "Maybe not."

Benedict gave another one of his slow, wise-owl nods. "I wasn't lying to keep you awake back there, Dean. Of course, I know people do that, but I don't do that." He looked at Sam, chewed his lip doubtfully. "I'm almost sure something else's going on in there besides all the ... well all the fucked-up stuff." Quickly he patted Dean on the side of the arm, made him jump.

"Ha," Benedict said, and then, "Ow."

He was still looking slightly pained when the pick-up pulled away. True to his word, he'd somehow gotten the ice-encrusted Impala parked neatly in a space under a tree. He didn't shake Sam's hand either to say goodbye, just touched his fingers lightly against his collar-bone.

"Really," said Sam, "We really ...."

"If I could tell you what's going to happen I would," Benedict said. "But all I know right now is that you're angry. Fit to be tied."

"I'm not ..."

"Yeah," Benedict said. "Yeah you are."

------

"You know what?" said Dean ominously, "We don't have time for this."

Somehow the duffels had been dropped in the snow instead of being loaded into the Impala. They had been walking across the Yard in a lemony morning sunshine, full of the last breakfast Dean was likely to cook for a while, when Sam just couldn't help himself and asked The Question.

"All I said was are you feeling all right."

"Seriously, Sam." Dean sounded beyond irked, never a good way to start a trip. "I mean, I get it, I get that there's a problem, that I'm a problem, but ...."

"Dude, you're not a problem."

Dean looked up at the sky.

"The fact that I need a fucking drink right now says you're wrong."

"What do you think, Dean? You were a ... jesus ... I mean, you think I would have done anything different if it'd been me down there? I wouldn't. No-one would. They'd have done the same as you, but they just would've done it sooner."

Sam picked up one duffel, threw it into the back feeling a little ominous himself.

"Dad didn't."

"Oh," said Sam, hoisting the second duffel on to his shoulder, "is that what Alastair told you? That Dad held out because he's such a stand-up guy, and you're not? That's bullshit, man. Seriously, Dean. Bullshit."

"Whatever," Dean rumbled, sweeping Perdition away with a flick of the wrist. "The point is we've got stuff to sort out, Sam. You, for example."

"I can look after myself." Sam threw the bag in, slammed shut the trunk.

"Yes I know you can. And you do. You did. That's fine. But, you know, even though I shouldn't be here, I mean I'm not meant to be here ... I get to carry on looking out for you, Sammy." There was the faintest nervous twitch of one eye as he went on so Sam knew the words were pretty close to heartfelt. "Those dicks up there and those sonsofbitches down there can plan what they like. I can't not do that."

"Truthfully though?" Sam said. "I'm not exactly what you signed up for, Dean. Not anymore."

"Truthfully?" Dean repeated, the word delicate and unfamiliar in his mouth. His eyes gleamed. "You scare the crap out of me, Sammy. Yeah, you do. It's looking like the freakin end of days, man, and we're on our knees ... but .... always was a mindless kind of a jerk, so what the fuck else am I gonna do but get up and go again?" He shrugged. "And you're going to get up and go with me, Sammy. That's all."

However feeble the little nugget Benedict thought he'd detected, Dean seemed prepared to give it a bit of elbow-room and it was like a wash of airy light over Sam's shoulders.

"Yeah," he said, nodding obediently. "OK."

"We'll carry on doing what we do, until something stops us."

Sam nodded again, not liking the something. He realized of course that Dean always talked the talk most convincingly when he could hardly put one foot in front of the other to walk the walk.

"And, uh, just for the record, I'm not going to go all temperance on you ... so you can forget about that drying me out shit."

"Dean ..."

"What? OK, you can kick my ass from time to time."

"I will," Sam said.

Bobby and Dog had come out of the house and were wending a cautious way across to them. Something Bobby had in his hands was encouraging Dog to stick to him like glue. They could hear the animal growling a little in the back of its throat, a half-happy half-irritated sound that made Dean shrug inside his jacket as if it prickled him.

"Something for the road," Bobby said, pitching two packets simultaneously. Dog's eyes and nose followed both missiles, straining against the hold Bobby had on his collar. Sam caught his prize in one hand but Dean fluffed his completely, backed right off when it landed on the ground and Dog growled and scrabbled towards it.

"I got it," Sam said, moving swiftly. "Thanks, Bobby."

"And you're sure you won't stick around?" Bobby asked.

"We've got a job," Sam said. He looked a little embarrassed. "Might even be a real one."

Bobby sent Dean a doubtful look over the roof of the Impala. "You up to this, boy?"

"Really, Bobby, we gotta go," Dean said. He leant his elbows across the V made by the open door and the roof of the car. "Not that I'm not grateful of course. For you and your fugly dog. And all the chores. And the crappy bed."

"Well you know," Bobby said. "I'm just here."

Dean straightened, turned his palms upwards for a second, took a close look, and then snapped them into fists. While Sam and Bobby exchanged one of their covert glances that Dean knew all about, he rounded the hood nonchalantly.

"You're good to drive, Sam."

When he'd handed over the keys, dropping them with a jangle of shaking fingers into Sam's curled-open palm, he stuck the whole hand under his armpit and squeezed as if to shut it the fuck up.

Sam knew he was probably going to have to get used to these little tics.

Bobby watched them climb in the car. He was kind of glad he'd soon be able to let Dog off the leash again, find which corners Sam had left all his books and discover, at last, what in heck Dean had done with his old frying pan. His hand acknowledged them as the Impala moved away, and he cocked his head slightly to get one last look.

Dean - fragile, brittle and hollow as a drum. Probably more than a little bit psychotic. As good a hero as the world was going to get and a damn sight better than some.

And Sam .... Bobby waggled his toes in his nearly-new boots.

_Hope he doesn't screw it up when his time comes._

Finally, when he thought the Impala was far enough away, Bobby let go the collar and Dog set off across the snow, barking wildly, pursuing the black car until it bumped round the corner and disappeared out of sight.

-ends-


End file.
